tihvaxy  of  tire  trheolo^ical  ^tmimvy 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


•3 


PURCHASED  BY  THE 

MRS.  ROBERT  LENOX  KENNEDY 

CHURCH  HISTORY  FUND 


BR52.0  C35 

Chapell,  F.L.  (Frederic  Leonard),  1836-1! 

Great  awakening  of  1740. 


THE 

Great  Jlwakenitid 

of  1740 


THE 

Htm  nmM\m 

of  1740 


"Bj/  Rev.  F.  L.  CHAPELL 


Lectures  delivered  before  the  Baptist  Church  of  Ev- 
anston,  ILL,  the  Second  Baptist  Church  of  Chicago^ 
and  other  churches;  published  by  request  in  "The 
Standard,"  and  used  for  the  Gordon  Missionary 
Training  School,  Boston. 


PHILADELPHIA 

American  :©apti6t  publication  Soctctig 
1903 


COPYRIGHT     1903     BY     THE 

AMERICAN  BAPTIST 
PUBLICATION   SOCIETY 

Published    December,    1903 


jfrom  tbe  Socictie's  own  press 


Content0 

I.  The  Great  awakening  of  1740— 
Introductory  7 

II.  John  Wesley  and  the  movement 
IN  Great  Britain 23 

III.  Jonathan     Edwards     and     the 

MOVEMENT  IN   NEW   ENGLAND    .    .      42 

IV.  Gilbert  Tennent  and  the  Move- 

ment IN  the  Middle  Colonies  .    67 

V.  George  whitefield,  the  Cosmo- 

politan evangelist 90 

VI.  James  Davenport   and  the   Dis- 

orders     no 

VII.  results    and    Lessons    of    the 

Great  awakening 126 


I 


^be  0reat  Bwaftening  ot  1740— 
UntroDuctors 

|HE  chief  religious  fact  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  the  great  revival 
of  spiritual  religion,  is  usually 
termed  the  Great  Awakening  of  1740,  be- 
cause its  chief  intensity,  in  this  country, 
culminated  about  that  time.  But  it  was  by 
no  means  confined  to  that  year.  It  com- 
menced more  than  a  decade  before  that  date 
and  continued  with  power  more  than  a  de-_ 
cade  after  it.  Yea,  more  ;  it  is  continuing 
yet,  for  the  revivals  with  which  we  are  re- 
peatedly visited,  are  but  the  echoes  and 
reverberations  of  that  mighty  blast  of  the 
gospel  trumpet  which  then  awoke  a  slum- 
bering church  and  a  slumbering  world.  Nor 
will  these  echoes  cease  till  the  mightier 
blast  of  Gabriel's  more  majestic  trump  shall 
announce  the  glories  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
I.  Let  us,  in  the  first  place,  step  back 
one  hundred  and  forty  years  or  thereabout. 


8 

and  take  a  little  survey  of  the  religious  con- 
dition of  the  world  in  the  first  third  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  And  I  may  as  well 
say  at  the  outset  that  it  is  a  dark,  sad  pic- 
ture that  we  shall  look  upon,  for  the  eight- 
eenth century,  one  of  the  most  interesting 
epochs  of  all  history,  as  a  whole  is  a  dark 
period.  Dreary  and  dreadful  epithets  have 
been  well-nigh  exhausted  in  describing  it. 
It  has  been  called  gloomy,  melancholy, 
shameful,  fearful,  terrible,  infernal,  devil- 
ish. It  has  been  termed  the  age  of  skepti- 
cism, the  period  of  the  eclipse  of  faith.  It 
-has  been  likened  to  the  awful  volcano,  and 
to  the  terrible  storm  of  the  whirlwind  or 
the  hurricane.  And  it  was  all  that  it  has 
been  called.  For  I  know  not  any  other 
period  of  the  world's  history  that  shows 
such  a  general  and  terrible  sway  of  essen- 
tial devilishness  as  that  which,  during  this 
century,  commenced  with  a  false  philoso- 
phy in  the  cloisters  of  the  savants  and 
ended  with  the  Reign  of  Terror  in  the  streets 
of  Paris.  The  enemy  came  in  truly  like  a 
flood,  but  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  lifted  up 
a  standard  against  him. 

But  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  survey  the 
whole  battle  ground,  to  canvass  the  con- 
flict in  continental  Europe,  and  in  the  do- 


9 

mains  of  the  Roman  and  Greek  commun- 
ions, but  merely  to  show  how  the  Lord 
came  to  the  rescue  of  those  who  had  the 
best  claim  to  being  his  witnesses  in  the 
world,  namely,  the  Protestant  churches  of 
Great  Britain  and  America. 

I.  Let  me  begin  by  noting  some  of  the 
political  and  material  facts  of  history  at  this 
time.  And  the  first  thing  that  strikes  us 
Americans  is  that  this  great  republic  of 
the  Western  world  had  not  then  come  into 
being.  There  was  in  America  only  a  line 
of  colonies  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  con- 
taining not  more  than  two  millions  of  in-  *  v" 
habitants.  New  York,  Boston,  and  Phila-  • 
delphia  were  hardly  more  than  overgrown 
villages.  George  IL  was  our  king.  Slavery 
existed  in  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut, 
as  well  as  in  Georgia  and  South  Carolina, 
while  numbers  of  Indians  swarmed  around 
the  young  and  growing  settlements.  Yet 
the  colonies  were  so  far  established  as  to 
have  come  into  a  secure  and  comfortable 
position,  while  the  disaffection  toward  the 
mother  country,  that  afterward  produced 
the  Revolution,  had  not  then  arisen. 

Across  the  ocean  the  kingdom  of  Great 
Britain  was  in  a  high  state  of  material  pros- 
perity.    By  a  series  of  salutary  events,  af- 


10 

ter  the  dethronement  of  James  the  Second, 
throughout  the  reigns  of  William  III.,  Queen 
Anne,  and  George  I.,  she  had  come  into 
a  commanding  position.  The  Protestant 
house  of  Brunswick  was  firmly  established 
on  the  throne  of  the  united  kingdom  under 
a  constitutional  monarchy.  The  victories 
of  Marlborough  had  humbled  her  rivals,  the 
founding  of  the  Bank  of  England  and  the 
establishment  of  the  East  India  Company, 
together  with  the  tribute  of  the  American 
Colonies,  had  greatly  advanced  her  financial 
interests  ;  and  material  prosperity  had  be- 
gun to  produce  its  invariable"fruits  of  profli- 
gacy, dishonesty,  and  rash  speculation.  The 
times  were"  so  good  politically  and  materi- 
ally that  they  were  bad  enough  morally 
and  religiously. 

2.  Another  thing  to  be  noticed  was  the 
intellectual  status  of  the  times.  It  is  always 
the  policy  of  Satan,  where  he  cannot  pre- 
vent a  movement  hostile  to  him,  to  mount 
it  himself  and,  riding  upon  it,  manage  it  in 
his  own  interests.  And  this  was  the  method 
in  which  he  was  now  treating  the  Protes- 
tant Reformation.  When  he  found  that  he 
could  not  prevent  free  inquiry  and  the  right 
of  private  judgment  ;  when  he  discovered 
that  he  could  not  prevent  the  establishment 


II 

of  a  Protestant  church,  he  determined  that 
he  would  push  free  inquiry  into  the  ex- 
tremes of  skepticism  and  unbelief,  and  that 
he  would  make  the  Protestant  church  as 
devoid  of  true  spiritual  life  as  the  Romish 
had  been. 

This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  explanation 
of  the  fearful  skepticism  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Over  the  intellectual  world  Satan 
breathed  the  benumbing  chill  of  unbelief 
regarding  things  divine  and  supernatural. 
Three  leading  classes  of  minds  especially 
fell  under  its  influence,  philosophers,  states- 
men, and  historians  ;  and  these  gave  direc- 
tion to  the  general  drift  of  thought.  Many 
of  these  stronger  minds  of  this  general 
period,  such  as  Hobbes  and  Locke  among 
philosophers,  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury  and 
Lord  Bolingbroke  among  statesmen,  Hume 
and  Gibbon  among  historians,  were  his 
chosen  apostles  for  the  dissemination  of 
infidel  sentiments.  Thus  the  foundations 
were  destroyed.  This  reigning  unbelief, 
together  with  the  political  and  material  pros- 
perity already  noticed,  was  fatal  enough  to 
true  piety.  Natural  religion  was  almost 
the  only  one  believed  in  at  all,  and  this,  as 
we  well  know,  has  but  little  strength  or  con- 
serving power.  As  a  consequence  the  public, 


12 

losing  faith  in  God  and  the  Bible,  lost  faith  in 
and  respect  for  restraining  principles  of  any 
kind  and  a  sort  of  lawlessness  and  vicious- 
ness  began  to  be  rife  that  alarmed  the  better 
class  of  reflecting  minds. 

3.  It  was  then  that  popular  literature  com- 
menced the  work  in  which  it  has  since  so 
largely  exerted  itself ;  namely,  of  attempt- 
ing to  correct  and  teach  morals.  It  was 
then  that  Steele's  "  Tatler  "  began  to  tell 
of  the  vices  of  society  ;  then  that  Addison's 
"Spectator"  began  to  hold  them  up  to 
view  ;  then  that  the  '*  Guardian,"  also  ed- 
ited by  Steele,  sought  to  defend  the  public 
from  its  insinuating  enemies,  and  soon  after 
that  Johnson's  "Rambler"  peregrinated  for 
the  same  good  cause.  And  these  did  pro- 
duce some  superficial  improvement ;  but  it 
was  only  superficial,  as  such  work  always 
will  be  unless  it  is  based  on  the  firmer  foun- 
dation of  revealed  truth  and  solemn  penalty. 
It  is  in  vain  to  say  this  or  that  is  shameful 
and  disastrous,  unless  you  can  show,  from 
eternal  truth,  why  it  is  shameful  and  to 
what  disaster  it  will  lead. 

II.  But  now,  leaving  the  general  view  of 
the  times,  I  wish  to  present  more  particu- 
larly the  state  of  the  Protestant  churches  at 
this   period  and   the  condition  of   religion 


within  them.  And  what  were  the  denomina- 
tions then  in  existence  ?  Think  a  moment. 
There  were  no  Methodists,  and  that  is  say- 
ing a  great  deal  "when  you  are  taking  an 
inventory  of  true  religion.  Again,  there 
were  very  few  Baptists,  and  that  too  is 
saying  a  great  deal  when  you  are  searching 
in  the  same  direction.  The  Baptists  could, 
indeed,  claim  at  this  period  a  recognized 
denominational  existence  of  a  hundred 
years,  both  in  Europe  and  America.  There 
were  now  eight  small  Baptist  churches  in 
Rhode  Island  and  a  number  of  others  scat- 
tered through  the  various  colonies,  with  a 
respectable  number  in  several  European 
States.  But  nowhere  did  they  have  a  legal 
right  to  exist  except  in  Rhode  Island.  In 
England  they  were  persecuted  till  the  Act 
of  Toleration  in  1689,  and  in  America  they 
only  obtained  full  legal  rights  after  the  Rev- 
olutionary War.  They,  therefore,  did  not 
form  any  very  important,  practical  element 
in  the  religious  status  of  this  period,  though 
their  protesting  voice  was  often  heard. 

The  only  Protestant  denominations  of 
prominence  in  Great  Britain  and  America 
at  this  time  were  Episcopalians,  Congre- 
gationalists,  and  Presbyterians,  and  these 
even  were  not  as  we  find  them  now.     They 


14 

have  greatly  changed,  at  least  the  last  two, 
in  two  important  particulars  :  first,  in  their 
relation  to  the  State  ;  and  second,  in  their 
practical  use  of  infant  baptism.  These 
three  churches  were  at  that  time  State 
Churches :  the  Episcopal,  of  England  ;  the 
Congregational,  of  New  England  ;  and  the 
Presbyterian,  of  Scotland.  They  were, 
moreover,  tenacious  of  these  political  rela- 
tions and  regarded  the  Baptists  as  pestilent 
heretics  because  they  pleaded  for  a  separa- 
tion of  Church  and  State.  Infant  baptism 
too  was  by  them  universally  practised,  and 
the  infants  baptized  were  very  generally 
regarded  as  Christians  and  as  full  members 
of  the  church.  Practice  on  these  latter 
points,  however,  was  not  uniform  through- 
out these  three  churches,  nor  indeed  in  the 
same  church  at  different  times  or  in  differ- 
ent places.  Hence  I  must  particularize  a 
little  in  regard  to  each  of  them  and  state 
a  little  more  fully  what  was  involved  in 
infant  baptism  and  the  union  of  Church 
and  State. 

I.  The  Episcopal  Church  was,  perhaps, 
the  best  exemplification  of  these  doctrines. 
Slie  held  that  at  baptism  the  child  was 
regenerated  and  ingrafted  into  the  church, 
and  that   such    regeneration    and    church 


15 

standing  was  necessary  to  good  civil  stand- 
ing. And  as  the  partaking  of  the  sacra- 
ment of  the  Lord's  Supper  was  an  expres- 
sion of  church  standing,  so  it  was  necessary 
to  civil  standing.  The  law  required  every 
one  who  was  to  hold  a  civil  office  to 
''qualify*'  himself  by  partaking  of  the 
sacrament.  Hence,  any  clergyman  who 
refused  to  give  the  sacrament  to  any  appli- 
cant inflicted  a  civil  injury  and  was  liable 
to  prosecution  at  law  for  the  offense.  Any 
one  who  had  been  baptized  and  had  learned 
the  creed  and  catechism  and  was  not  scan- 
dalous in  life  had  a  legal  right  to  the  sacra- 
ment. In  all  this  there  was  not  the  least 
reference  to  the  spiritual  state  of  the  heart. 
Any  discrimination  in  favor  of  true  religion 
by  evangelical  rectors  only  produced  trou- 
ble for  them.  John  Wesley,  during  his 
sojourn  in  Georgia,  was  prosecuted  at  law 
for  refusing  the  sacrament  to  a  person 
whom  he  judged  to  be  unfit  for  its  recep- 
tion. Such  a  thing  as  intelligent  conver- 
sion was  not  at  all  insisted  upon  in  the 
Episcopal  Church. 

2.  The  condition  of  the  Congregational 
Church  of  New  England,  though  theoretic- 
ally different,  had  come  to  be  practically 
about  the   same.     The   original    Puritans 


i6 

who  emigrated  to  this  country  for  con- 
science' sake  knew  what  true  religion  was, 
and  they  attempted  to  insist  on  this  in 
their  church  order.  The  Cambridge  plat- 
form, laid  down  in  1648,  declared  that  none 
except  such  as  might  "  in  charitable  discre- 
tion "  be  considered  regenerate  persons 
should  be  admitted  to  the  communion. 
But  the  union  of  Church  and  State  and 
the  theory  of  infant  baptism  overthrew  the 
laudable  intention.  By  the  law  of  the 
>yNew  England  colonies  no  one  could  hold  a 
civil  office,  or  even  vote  at  elections,  unless 
he  were  a  church-member.  Hence,  those 
who  had  been  baptized  in  infancy  would, 
of  course,  claim  their  church-membership 
in  order  to  citizenship,  and  if  church-mem- 
bers, surely  they  must  have  all  church 
privileges.  Thus,  in  course  of  time,  the 
Congregationalists  receded  from  the  noble 
ground  of  the  Cambridge  platform  and  no 
longer  required  evidence  of  conversion  or 
change  of  heart  in  order  to  full  church- 
membership. 

3.  Among  the  Presbyterians  the  case  was 
much  the  same.  They  have,  indeed,  ever 
theoretically  held  that  saving  faith  was 
necessary  in  order  to  the  partaking  of  the 
communion.     Hence,  their  preparatory  lee- 


/ 


17 

ture  and  the  meeting  of  the  session  before 
the  communion  in  order  to  examine  the 
baptized  in  reference  to  their  qualifications 
for  partaking.  But  in  Scotla^od-  the  Presby- 
terian Church  was  established  by  law,  and 

all  except  the  ignorant  and  the  scandalous 
had  a  legal  right"  to  the  sacrament. 
Therefore,  the  sessions  could  not  and  did 
not  insist  on  evidences  of  conversion,  but 
sheltered  themselves  behind  a  curious 
theory  of  some  of  their  theologians,  to  the 
effect  that  regeneration  was  such  a  subtle 
and  mysterious  operation  that  no  one  could 
judge  from  his  feelings  whether  he  was  a 
subject  of  it  or  not.  But  it  was  taken  for 
granted  that  all  who  had  been  baptized  and 
were  not  scandalous  in  their  lives  were 
regenerated  without  regard  to  their  emo- 
tions or  affections.  Hence,  all  respectable 
young  people  were  usually  admitted  to  full 
membership  when  they  arrived  at  years  of 
understanding.  By  this  method  a  large 
share  of  the  communicants  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  of  Scotland  had  no  practical 
experience  of  spiritual  religion.  And  the 
churches  of  this  order  in  America  were 
constructed,  as  far  as  possible,  on  the  Scot- 
tish model. 

Thus  we  find  that  at  this  time  the  three  ' 
B  -^ 


i8 

leading  denominations  of  Protestantism 
ignored  vital  piety  in  their  church  order. 
The  voice  of  the  few  and  scattered  Baptists 
was  raised  from  time  to  time  in  favor  of  a 
converted  church-membership,  but  with 
little  general  effect  since  they  had  no  legal 
or  influential  standing. 

III.  From  this  constitution  and  order  of 
the  churches  several  grave  results  followed. 

1.  The  churches  themselves  were  in  a 
very  low  state  of  spiritual  life  and  power, 
since  a  large  portion  of  their  members  knew 
nothing  of  that  heart  experience  which 
constitutes  the  essence  of  true  religion. 
Scarcely  any  discipline  could  be  enforced. 
No  prayer  meetings  bearing  any  respect- 
able proportion  to  the  whole  membership 
could  be  held.  The  church  as  a  whole  was 
not  a  spiritual  body.  There  might  be  a 
few  spiritual  members,  but  what  were  they 
among  so  many  ?  The  forms  of  religion 
were  observed,  but  the  power  was  wanting. 

2.  Another  result  was  that  the  ministry 
was  fearfully  deteriorated,  being  composed 
in  many  cases  of  those  who  made  no  pre- 
tension to  personal  piety,  for  there  was 
nothing  to  hinder  such  taking  the  holy 
office.  If  a  change  of  heart  was  not  neces- 
sary for  the  membership,  why  was  it  for  the 


ministry  ?  If  religion  consisted  in  the  ob- 
servance of  the  sacraments  and  a  moral 
life,  truly  he  who  was  faithful  in  these  re- 
gards and  was  talented  and  well  educated 
was  a  proper  candidate  for  the  ministry. 
Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  there  were  not 
only  unconverted  and  unspiritual  men  in 
the  ministry,  but  there  were  found  leading 
and  prominent  divines  to  argue  that  such  a 
state  of  things  was  perfectly  proper,  that  K 
it  was  not  necessary  to  have  an  experi- 
mental knowledge  of  religion  in  order  to 
preach  it.  This  view  seems  strange  to  us 
now.  To  be  sure,  many  of  the  incumbents 
of  the  livings  in  the  Church  of  England  are 
worldly  men.  It  does  not  perhaps  shock 
us  to  think  of  rectors  and  curates  in  the 
Establishment,  who  make  no  pretension  to 
personal  piety.  But  to  think  of  this  among  * 
Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians  does 
seem  decidedly  incongruous  ;  yet  such  was 
the  sad  fact  before  the  Great  Awakening 
of  1740,  and  may  be  again  should  spiritual 
life  run  low. 

3.  But  the  saddest  result  of  all  was  the 
effect  that  this  state  of  things  had  upon  the    i 
general  public.     People  heard  scarcely  any-      • 
thing  in  many  cases  from  the  pulpit  that 
was  at  all  searching,  for  a  dead  ministry 


20 

must,  of  course,  preach  dead  sermons.  But 
if  the  truth  did  sometimes  fall  upon  the  peo- 
ple, it  had  but  little  effect,  when  they  re- 
membered that  they  were  already  members 
of  the  church,  and  that  they  had  fulfilled 
the  requirements  of  the  church.  They  con- 
sidered that  they  were  Christians  already, 
in  some  sense,  for  they  had  been  baptized 
in  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  they  were  re- 
membering Christ  in  the  holy  sacrament 
according  as  they  were  commanded.  They 
were  doing  all  that  they  could,  and  what 
more  was  required  of  them  ?  And,  as  if  to 
take  off  the  point  of  any  scriptural  arrow 
from  a  new-birth  text  that  might  penetrate 
the  joints  of  this  churchly  harness,  it  was 
maintained  in  many  quarters,  as  I  have  al- 
ready remarked,  that  regeneration  was  so 
subtle  an  operation  as  not  to  be  cognizable 
by  the  affections.  If  one  had  obeyed  God 
in  the  ordinances  he  was  to  presume  that 
he  had  been  regenerated,  even  though  he 
might  not  be  aware  of  any  experience  of 
religion  in  the  heart.  The  general  result 
was,  of  course,  that  the  need  of  conversion 
was  practically  denied. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  best,  or  at  least 
the  most  influential  portion  of  Protestantism 


21 

in  the  earlier  years  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. And  what  saith  the  Scripture  ?  "  If 
the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how 
great  is  that  darkness."  If,  now,  you  will 
remember  what  I  said  in  the  earlier  part  of 
this  discourse  as  to  the  mighty  wave  of 
skepticism  and  irreligion  that  was  pouring 
over  the  earth  from  the  high  places  of  in- 
tellectual thought ;  if  you  will  remember 
that  Christianity  was  by  the  learned  re- 
garded only  as  a  subject  of  ridicule,  un- 
worthy of  inquiry  or  discussion  ;  if  you 
will  remember  that  worldly  prosperity  was 
causing  men  to  feel  independent  of  God  ; 
if  you  will  take  all  these  things  into  con- 
sideration, you  will  see  that  to  human  view 
Christianity  was  clean  gone  forever.  The 
floods  of  ungodly  men  were  sweeping  on, 
and  a  corrupt  and  enervated  church  had 
neither  doctrine  nor  life  wherewith  to  stem 
the  tide.  You  can  therefore  understand 
why  the  infidel  element  of  the  time  was 
confident  of  a  complete  victory,  and  why 
the  faithful  few  mourned  with  such  a  pa- 
thetic and  bitter  cry  over  the  departing 
glories  of  Zion. 

IV.  For  there  were  a  few  godly  souls 
that  humbly  lamented  the  state  of  affairs, 
and  were  sending  up  their  prayers  to  the 


22 

great  Head  of  the  church  for  the  interposi- 
tion of  his  mighty  power.  Bishop  Burnett 
and  Dr.  Watts,  and  men  of  such  spirit,  were 
mourning,  praying,  and  exhorting,  while 
Bishop  Butler  and  men  of  cool,  steady  faith 
were  preparing  their  arguments  to  show  the 
thinking  minds  of  the  day  that  it  might  be 
a  sensible  thing,  after  all,  to  consider  the 
claims  of  a  revealed  religion. 

But  He  who  purchased  the  church  with 
his  own  precious  blood,  saw  from  on  high 
the  situation  and  prepared  his  chosen 
agents.  In  the  year  1703,  three  able  and 
^/  godly  ministers  of  Christ,  one  in  England, 
one  in  America,  and  one  in  Ireland,  had 
each  a  son  born  to  him,  and  these  three 
infants  were,  in  the  providence  of  God,  to 
become  the  men  that  were  largely  instru- 
mental in  the  revival  of  true  religion,  sever- 
ally, in  the  bosom  of  the  three  churches  we 
have  been  considering.  The  names  of 
V  these  three  children  were  John  Wesley, 
Jonathan  Edwards,  and  Gilbert  Tennent. 
And  a  few  years  later  there  was  born  one 
whom  no  one  church  or  land  could  claim  as 
her  own,  George  Whitefield,  who  with  a 
heart  as  large  as  the  world,  traversed  up 
and  down  its  length  and  breadth,  preach- 
ing the  everlasting  gospel  to  every  creature. 


23 

and  serving  as  a  uniting  bond  between  all 
those  who  loved  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in 
sincerity  and  in  truth. 

To  trace  the  lives,  times,  and  works  of 
these  men,  and  to  set  forth  the  great  awak- 
ening which  God  wrought  through  them, 
will  be  the  object  of  the  remainder  of  these 
discourses 


II 


5obn  Wicelc^  ant)  tbe  fHlovemcnt  in 
Great  Britain 

E  are  now  to  look  at  John  Wesley 
and  the  revival  movement  in  the 
Episcopal  Church  of  Great  Britain 
— a  movement  commonly  known  as  the  rise 
of  Methodism,  and  resulting,  at  length,  in  the 
formation  of  the  Methodist  denomination. 

Two  considerations,  however,  will  pre- 
vent me  from  attempting  anything  like  a 
detailed  account  of  the  particular  historical 
or  biographical  facts  in  the  case.  One  is, 
that  it  is  simply  impossible,  in  a  single  dis- 
course, to  portray,  even  with  tolerable  full- 
ness, a  movement  so  vast  in  its  propor- 
tions, so  mighty  in  its  power,  and  so  grand 
in  its  results  as  the  rise  of  Methodism  ;  the 
other  is,  that  it  would  be  presuming  upon 


24 

the  intelligence  of  my  audience  to  rehearse 
these  common  facts,  so  ably  and  frequently 
set  forth  by  this  influential  people,  regard- 
ing their  early  history.  I  shall  take  it  for 
granted  that  you  are  already  acquainted 
with  the  manner  in  which  Wesley  and  his 
fellow-laborers  were  called  and  prepared  to 
be  leaders  in  this  revival  of  religion  so  pre- 
eminently apostolic  ;  and  that  you  under- 
stand that  this  work  was  carried  on  by 
Wesley  to  the  grandest  results  without  any 
.  design  or  wish  of  founding  a  new  church, 
but  simply  as  a  revival  of  true  religion  in 
the  English  Church.  In  fact,  I  trust  that 
you  perceive  that  this  was  not  a  work  of 
Wesley,  or  of  any  other  man,  or  any  body 
of  men,  but  of  God,  and  that  as  such  it 
was  beset,  opposed,  and  fought  at  every 
step  by  the  great  enemy  of  God.  This  is 
the  feature  of  the  movement  that  strikes 
my  mind  as  worthy  of  special  considera- 
tion— the  grand  spiritual  conflict — and  con- 
sequently I  shall,  in  this  discourse,  simply 
call  your  attention  to  those  points  where 
Satan  pitched  his  battle  with  the  Lord  and 
was  so  signally  foiled.  If,  however,  you 
find  your  knowledge  of  the  history  scanty, 
so  that  you  cannot  easily  follow  the  thread 
of  my  remarks,  I  would  advise  you  never 


to  read  another  work  of  fiction  until  you 
have  faithfully  perused  this  grand  record 
of  sublimest  fact. 

I  think  I  see  at  least  eight  distinct  points  in 
this  history  where  the  Lord  gained  a  grand 
victory  oyer  the  great  adversary  of  souls. 

I.  The^ first  is  where  the  enemy  under- 
took  the  destruction  of  the  child.  Old  tactics, 
these.  He  set  Pharaoh's  officers  after  the 
infant  Moses,  and  Herod's  soldiers  after  the 
infant  Jesus.  And  in  like  manner  he  set  the 
Epworth  rabble  to  burn  the  house  wherein 
was  sleeping  the  little  boy  John  Wesley. 

It  is  well  aflame  before  any  of  the  house- 
hold wakes,  all  is  confusion  and  terror,  each 
rushes  for  himself  through  window,  or  door, 
or  whatever  egress  is  possible,  the  mother 
literally  passing  through  the  fire.  And  as 
they  gather  outside  looking  anxiously  in 
each  others'  faces  by  the  glaring  light  of 
the  burning  dwelling,  they  discover  that 
one  of  the  large  flock  is  missing.  The 
little  boy  John  is  in  there  yet,  upstairs  fast 
asleep,  while  the  roof  above  him  is  burning 
and  his  bed  even  is  already  taking  fire. 
Madly  the  father  attempts  the  passage  of 
the  stairs,  but  in  vain.  How  the  arch  fiend 
exults  !  How  he  will  nip  that  precious  bud, 
and  destroy  that  potent  germ  !     But  no  ; 


26 

God  hath  otherwise  ordained.  The  boy 
wakes,  leaps  from  the  bed,  and  flies  to  the 
window.  Some  kind-hearted  peasants  make 
a  human  ladder,  one  on  top  of  another,  and 
down  comes  the  boy.  John  Wesley  is  saved 
to  the  world. 

But  this  is  not  all.  That  escape  stamped 
upon  the  mind  of  the  thoughtful  boy,  and 
upon  the  heart  of  the  prayerful  mother,  and 
upon  the  soul  of  the  believing  father,  the 
idea  of  destiny.  They  felt  that  the  escape 
was  for  a  purpose.  Henceforth  the  father 
planned,  and  the  moth<?r  prayed,  and  the 
boy  studied,  feeling  that  God  was  with 
him,  and  that  work  was  before  him.  Ah  ! 
this  idea  of  destiny  is  a  power.  The  great 
have  it,  and  it  furnishes  courage  and  inspira- 
tion for  many  a  dark  hour.  How,  then, 
was  the  enemy  doubly  foiled  I  Instead  of 
destroying  the  child  he  gave  clear  articula- 
tion to  the  secret  thought  of  coming  great- 
ness in  the  Lord's  cause.  In  after  years 
Wesley  had  engraven  on  one  of  his  por- 
traits the  emblem  of  a  burning  house,  and 
underneath  it  the  Scripture  motto  :  "  Is  not 
this  a  brand  plucked  from  the  burning  .?  " 

2.  The  next  point  that  I  notice  is  where 
the  adversary  invaded  the  Epworth  rectory, 
and  beset  the  Wesley  family  with  spiritual 


\ 


27 

manifestations.  This  table-tipping  religion 
that  is  so  vaunting  itself  in  our  day  is  not 
altogether  a  new  thing.  It  is  one  of  Satan's 
old  methods  of  operation,  which  he  brings 
forth  from  time  to  time,  whenever  he  judges 
he  can  gain  an  advantage  by  it.  The 
Wesley  family  seemed  so  surcharged  with 
destiny  to  the  Lord's  cause  that  he  would 
try  anything  and  everything  to  lead  them 
astray.  The  manifestations  began  in  the 
Epworth  rectory  when  John  was  under 
twelve  years,  at  a  most  impressible  age. 
And  the  Fox  girls,  or  the  Eddy  brothers, 
could  hardly  produce  greater  demonstrations 
than  those  which  came  unbidden  to  this 
quiet  family.  Whistlings  and  knockings 
and  moanings  and  trailing  of  garments,  and 
opening  and  slamming  of  doors,  and  jump- 
ing of  dishes,  and  even  of  so  large  an  arti- 
cle as  a  bed,  and  many  other  demonstra- 
tions with  a  seeming  intelligence  behind 
them,  answering  questions,  interrupting 
family  devotions,  showing  special  spite 
against  certain  prayers — these  were  the 
wonderful,  yet  clumsy  methods  of  intrigue 
used  by  the  disturbed  prince  of  evil  as  he 
hovered  around  that  noted  family. 

But   they  were  received   by  that   God- 
fearing and  Bible-believing  household  just 


28 

as  they  always  should  be,  as  preternatural 
phenomena  harmless  enough  if  let  alone — ■ 
a  sort  of  intriguing  challenge  from  the  un- 
seen world  that  was  to  be  met  in  the  firm 
faith  of  God's  word.  Therefore  none  of 
the  family  was  led  astray  from  the  eternal 
principles  of  revealed  truth  into  wild  vaga- 
ries or  vain  speculations.  But  on  the  con- 
trary a  great  advantage  was  gained  ;  for 
there  was  thus  engendered  among  them  a 
hearty  practical  faith  in  the  supernatural, 
which  must  be  the  habitual  possession  of 
one  who  is  to  be  valiant  for  the  truth,  and 
which  was  especially  needed  in  that  age 
when  nature  was  so  deified.  A  robust  be- 
lief in  God  and  in  the  devil  is  necessary  to 
bold,  efficient  Christian  character.  Luther 
had  such,  of  whom  it  is  related  that  some- 
times being  awakened  by  noises  in  the 
night,  he  would  listen  a  moment  and  then 
saying,  "  It  is  nothing  but  the  devil,"  would 
turn  over  and  quietly  take  another  nap. 
Something  of  this  spirit  did  these  manifes- 
tations create  in  Wesley.  They  opened 
his  mind  to  the  practical  facts  of  the  super- 
natural realm,  but  made  him  fearless  of  the 
presence  or  power  of  evil  beings.  Thus 
again  was  the  great  adversary  beaten  by 
his  ovvn  weapons. 


3.  Next  is  Wesley's  escape  from  mysti- 
cism and  asceticism.  Surcharged  as  he  was 
with  religious  feeling,  and  with  the  ideas  of 
religious  destiny,  but  still  groping  in  spir- 
itual darkness,  not  having  yet  learned  jus- 
tification by  faith,  he  eagerly  devoured  in 
his  student  and  early  ministerial  days  those 
searching  works  of  devotion  that  were  then, 
and  are  still  now,  standard  in  their  depart- 
ment, such  as  Thomas  a  Kempis'  **Imita-  , 
tion  of  Christ,**  Jeremy  Taylor's  **  Holy  /( 
Living  and  Dying,"  and  Law's  ''Serious 
Call,"  works  that  go  probing  the  secrets  of 
the  heart  and  enjoining  the  strictest  service 
of  the  spirit— works  which  may  be  read 
with  the  greatest  profit  by  one  whose  piety 
is  intelligent,  healthy,  and  joyful,  but  which 
may  prove  a  snare  and  a  burden  to  one  who 
has  not  learned  the  freeness  of  pardon  in 
Christ.  These  works,  I  say,  he  eagerly 
devoured,  and  soon  felt  that  to  realize  their 
holy  teachings  he  must  retire  from  the 
world  and  give  his  whole  time  to  medita- 
tion and  prayer.  The  life  of  a  sort  of  Rom- 
ish recluse  became  his  ideal,  as  it  has  of  so 
many  earnest  and  devoted  souls.  Here, 
again,  Satan  rejoiced  in  hope,  for  he  has 
had  great  success  in  this  line  of  action, 
causing  multitudes  of  those  that  might  have 


30 

been  heroes  or  angels  of  mercy  to  imprison 
themselves  forever  under  the  impression 
that  thus  they  were  best  doing  God  serv- 
ice. And  nothing  would  have  been  a 
grander  stroke  of  satanic  policy  than  to 
have  slain  John  Wesley  with  the  keen 
sword  of  Thomas  a  Kempis.  But  here 
again  God  saved  him.  His  clear-headed 
and  warm-hearted  mother  objected  to  the 
idea,  and  a  discerning  old  Christian  whom 
he  providentially  visited  at  this  time  broke 
in  upon  his  dreams  in  words  somewhat  like 
these,  **  Young  man,  you  can  never  serve 
God  and  go  to  heaven  alone.  You  must 
either  find  or  make  companions."  Thus 
was  he  saved,  and  it  can  never  be  said  that 
John  Wesley  went,  or  tried  to  go,  to  heaven 
alone.  No,  but  rather  escorted  by  thousands 
whom  he  had  been  instrumental  in  teaching 
the  way  of  life. 

4.  The  fourth  point  I  notice  is  his  escape 
from  legalism,  a  more  dangerous  foe  even 
than  mysticism,  especially  at  that  time 
when  practical  religion  was  at  so  low  an 
ebb,  and  when  even  the  common  charities 
of  life  were  so  far  neglected  that  to  engage 
in  them  was  deemed  unusually  meritorious. 
Companions,  as  advised,  he  found  in  his 
brother  Charles,  in  Whitefield,  Morgan,  and 


31 

Kirkham,  who  with  him  constituted  at  Ox- 
ford the  "  Holy  Club."  And  if  religion  was 
to  be  found  in  good  works,  surely  these 
young  men  found  it.  Fasting  twice  a  week, 
receiving  the  communion  every  Sabbath, 
losing  no  moment  of  the  whole  day  from 
consecrated  employment,  all  that  could  be 
spared  from  study  and  from  prayer  being 
given  to  the  sick,  to  the  poor,  to  the  igno- 
rant, to  the  prisoners,  and,  in  fine,  to  every 
suffering  and  needy  class  of  society  so  gen- 
erally and  strangely  neglected  in  that  for- 
mal age  ;  no  wonder  that  their  fellow-stu- 
dents pointed  the  finger  of  scornful  surprise 
and  wondering  amazement  at  lives  so  zeal- 
ous and  self-denying.  What  could  be  more 
natural  than  for  these  young  men,  thus  toil- 
ing and  thus  ridiculed,  to  suppose  that  they 
had  attained,  that  they  were  true  and  very 
excellent  Christians,  far  exceeding  the  great 
mass  of  professors  ^  And  doubtless  when 
the  Wesleys  turned  their  backs  upon  the 
cultured  society  of  England  to  teach  the 
wild  Indian  of  America  the  knowledge  of 
Christ,  they  did  suppose  that  they  were 
among  the  truest  and  sincerest  followers  of 
the  Man  of  Nazareth  that  the  world  could 
show.  Punctilious,  zealous,  self-denying, 
prayerful,  who  shall  blame  them  for  sup- 


32 

posing  that  they  had  attained  to  the  essence 
of  Christianity  ?  But  oh,  how  fatal  the 
mistake  had  they  stopped  here  !  And  yet 
how  easy  and  natural  to  stop  here,  for  who 
was  there  to  suggest  anything  further  or 
better  than  this  self-denying  life  ?  For 
this  even  they  were  ridiculed,  yea,  perse- 
cuted for  righteousness*  sake.  And  were 
they  not,  therefore,  according  to  the  Sav- 
iour's own  words  blessed  ?  Here,  at  least, 
the  enemy  thought  to  hold  Wesley,  think- 
ing after  all  he  would  get  no  higher  concep- 
tion of  religion  than  this  with  which  so 
many  are  satisfied. 

But  God  had  ordered  otherwise.  On 
shipboard,  in  their  passage  to  America, 
these  Methodists  rivaled  the  renowned 
Moravians  in  the  strict  performance  of  re- 
ligious duties,  but  when  the  terrible  storm 
arose,  and  all  stood  face  to  face  with  death, 
then  it  became  evident  to  Wesley  that  these 
Moravians  had  something  that  he  did  not 
have — perfect  trust,  perfect  peace,  perfect 
love,  that  took  away  all  fear — the  heart 
securely  resting  in  God,  the  same  in  dan- 
ger as  in  safety.  Here  was  something  to 
which  even  the  devoted  Wesley  was  a 
stranger,  and  to  which  he  felt  he  must 
attain.     God  would  not  allow  him  to  rest. 


_|3_ 

Good  works  and  a  self-denying  life  could 
not  satisfy  him. 

So  we  find  him  after  a  period  of  mission- 
ary labor,  wearily,  hungeringly,  thirstily, 
crying  out  of  the  depths  of  his  heart,  as  he 
caught  sight  of  his  native  land  on  the  re- 
turn voyage,  **  I  went  to  America  to  con- 
vert the  Indians,  but  oh,  who  shall  convert 
me  ?  Who,  what  is  he  that  shall  deliver 
me  from  this  evil,  evil  heart  of  unbelief  ? 
This  have  I  found  in  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
that  I  have  fallen  short  of  the  glory  of  God." 
And  when  some  one  suggested  that  he  was 
unduly  excited,  he  exclaimed,  "  I  am  not 
mad,  but  speak  the  words  of  truth  and 
soberness." 

And  thus  he  mourned  and  thus  he  sought, 
till  that  memorable  Wednesday  evening  at 
a  quarter^.before  nine  o'clock.  May  24,  1738, 
at  the  Moravian  society  meeting,  when  the  J\ 
burden  that  he  had  borne  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century  fell  off,  and  the  thirst  wherewith 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century  he  had  thirsted, 
was  slaked  in  the  fullness  of  a  precious 
draught  from  the  stream  of  everlasting  life. 
Now  John  Wesley,  after  twenty-five  years 
of  blind  groping  in  feebleness,  sees  with  a 
clear  eye  and  holds  with  a  firm  grip  and 
feels  with  a  full  heart  the  main  essential 
C 


34 

truth  of  Christianity.  Now  he  is  a  Chris- 
tian ;  now  he  is  a  man  of  power ;  now  he 
will  move  the  world.  This  was  one  of  the 
grandest  triumphs  of  God's  Spirit  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen,  and  the  enemy,  in- 
stead of  hindering  the  discovery  and  at- 
tainment of  this  essence  and  strength  of 
Christianity,  only  stamped  its  importance 
and  preciousness  all  the  more  forcibly  on 
the  heart  of  this  great.movement. 

5.  The  next  poinji'' of  victory  was  the 
humble,  Christ-like  endurance  of  persecution 
on  the  part  of  the  Methodist  preachers. 
Whitefield  soon  led  Wesley  into  the  open- 
air  work,  and  he  in  turn  many  kindred 
spirits.  The  power  of  God  worked  might- 
ily with  them,  so  that  in  a  few  years  the 
whole  kingdom  was  moved.  They  went 
everywhere  preaching  the  word  to  every 
creature.  All  classes  heard  with  wonder, 
but  particularly  were  the  degraded  and 
vicious  obedient  to  the  truth.  The  colliers 
of  Kingswood,  the  wreckers  of  Cornwall, 
the  soldiers  of  the  army,  and  all  such  neg- 
lected and  hardened  classes  were  won  to 
Christ  by  hundreds  and  by  thousands.  The 
English,  the  Welsh,  the  Irish,  and  even  the 
phlegmatic  Scotch,  were  all  melted  before 
the  burning  words  of  ardent  love  and  holy 


35 

fire.  This  was  more  than  the  enemy  could 
quietly  endure,  and  in  his  rage  he  threw  off 
disguise  and  turned  his  hand  to  open,  brutal, 
savage  persecutions.  It  seems  almost  im- 
possible to  believe  that  such  things  occurred 
in  Christian  England  in  the  days  of  some 
of  our  grandfathers.  They  are  more  be- 
coming the  untaught  heathen  upon  whose 
territory  Christianity  seemed  an  encroach- 
ment in  the  days  of  old. 

But  truth  is  stranger  than  fiction.  These 
noble  men,  who  without  money  and  with- 
out price,  so  ardently  toiled  for  a  revival 
of  the  established  religion  of  the  realm, 
were  treated  by  State  officials  and  wild 
mobs  alike  as  the  veriest  outlaws  who 
were  to  be  silenced  at  any  price.  Volumes 
might  be  written  full  of  thrilling  narrations 
of  the  sufferings  and  of  the  marvelous 
escapes  of  the  Methodists  in  the  first  half- 
century  of  their  career.  They  were  ar- 
rested, fined,  imprisoned,  stoned,  beaten, 
kicked,  ducked,  and  maltreated  in  almost 
every  possible  way.  To  knock  them  sense- 
less on  the  ground,  and  then  to  walk  and 
jump  on  them,  "to  tread  the  Holy  Ghost 
out  of  them,"  as  their  tormentors  used 
blasphemously  to  say,  was  a  favorite  ex- 
ample of   the  perfect  devilishness  of   the 


36 

spirit  of  brutal  opposition  that  confronted 
these  men  of  God.  And  the  worst  phase  of 
it  ail  was  that  these  mobs  were  frequently 
set  on  openly  or  countenanced  tacitly  by 
the  regular  clergy  of  the  Establishment, 
whose  altars  these  Methodists  were  replen- 
ishing, and  from  whose  hand  they  received 
the  sacraments  of  the  Lord's  house. 

Yet  so  plentifully  was  the  spirit  of  the 
Master  supplied  that  the  inhuman  policy 
failed  ;  failed  not  only  to  deter  these 
preachers  from  their  work,  but  also  to 
raise  any  resentful  or  bitter  feeling  in  their 
breasts.  It  is  marvelous  how  these  men 
could  suffer  such  indignities  and  yet  go 
cheerfully  on  in  their  work,  loyal  still  to 
the  mother  church  and  receiving  the  sacra- 
ments at  her  altars.  Never,  perhaps,  were 
the  Saviour's  evangelistic  directions  more 
fully  complied  with.  When  they  were 
persecuted  in  one  city  they  fled  to  another, 
and  oftentimes  while  yet  sore  and  stiff 
with  beatings  and  bruises,  stood  imme- 
diately up,  meekly,  yet  earnestly  to  pro- 
claim the  word  of  the  Lord.  The  adver- 
sary succeeded  no  better  with  brute  force 
than  with  cunning  intrigue. 

6.  Another  point  where  a  great  victory 
was  gained  was  in  the  avoidance  of  fanat- 


37 

icism.  No  such  powerful  religious  work 
can  be  carried  on  without  great  arouse- 
ment  of  the  feelings,  and  the  instances  are 
not  few  where,  in  weak  human  nature, 
passion  gains  the  advantage  over  reason 
at  such  times.  Great  mental  agitation 
will  frequently  produce  physical  contor- 
tions that  become  in  a  measure  epidemic 
and  distract  attention  from  the  more  im- 
portant exercises  of  the  soul.  Satan,  more- 
over, at  such  a  time  almost  invariably  steps 
in  to  counterfeit  or  unduly  increase  true 
emotion,  till  he  brings  disgrace  on  the  whole 
work.  In  notable  instances  a  mighty  work 
of  God  has  thus  been  brought  to  a  morti- 
fying and  disgraceful  end.  Such  was  the 
case  with  the  splendid  work  in  London  un- 
der Edward  Irving  in  the  present  [19th]  cen- 
tury. By  this  means  the  Great  Awakening 
itself  was  badly  marred  in  some  parts  of 
America.  And  if  ever  an  opportunity  was 
afforded  to  Satan  to  gain  a  victory  in  this 
regard,  it  surely  was  among  these  shout- 
ing Methodists.  Excitement  ran  high,  and 
wild  demonstrations  frequently  drowned 
the  preacher's  voice.  Visionary  and  ex- 
citable men  had,  of  course,  their  supposed 
revelations  from  the  Lord  to  do  all  manner 
of  absurd  things.     But  God  so  protected 


38 

the  coolness  and  good  sense  of  the  Wesleys, 
who  had  already  in  their  childhood  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  chief  author  of  confu- 
sion, that  he  was  in  a  large  degree  foiled,  and 
the  Methodist  movement,  noisy  and  demon- 
strative as  it  was  in  many  cases,  was  never- 
theless saved  from  any  great  vagaries  of  fa- 
naticism. And,  I  ween,  Satan  was  never 
more  crestfallen  than  when  he  discovered 
that  he  could  not  turn  the  strength  of  this 
great  movement  into  ranting,  visions,  vag- 
aries, and  general,  profitless  fanaticism. 

7.  Still  another  point  wherein  a  great 
victory  was  gained  was  in  reference  to  doc- 
trinal discussion.  There  is  a  strange  fasci- 
nation in  controversy.  Men  will  fight  for  a 
truth  that  they  will  not  think  of  obeying. 
The  ages  have  been  polemical,  the  Middle 
Ages  especially.  The  Reformation  was 
largely  a  war  of  doctrine.  And  we  of  this 
day  can  scarcely  realize  the  zest  and  the 
heat  of  the  Calvinistic  and  Arminian  con- 
troversy in  the  period  we  are  considering. 
Calvinism  had  been  the  orthodoxy  of  non- 
conformity, but  Wesley  proved  an  Armin- 
ian, while  Whitefield,  the  great  evangelist 
of  the  age,  and  the  bosom  friend  of  Wes- 
ley, remained  a  stanch  Calvinist.  These 
two  giants  in  the  cause  could  not  agree. 


39 

Whitefield's  Tabernacle  rose  near  Wesley's 
Foundry.  And  now,  thought  Satan,  for 
a  grand  theological  fight  that  shall  kill  the 
spiritual  revival.  But  these  two  men, 
warned  of  God  as  it  would  seem,  came 
together,  realizing  the  situation,  and  agreed 
to  disagree  in  belief  while  working  together 
in  the  same  grand  cause.  They  exchanged 
pulpits  and  gave  to  each  other  the  right 
hand  of  fellowship  to  go  on  their  several 
ways.  Thus  the  Lord's  army  marched  on 
in  two  great  divisions  instead  of  being 
compressed  into  one.  Whitefield  with 
Lady  Huntington  and  the  Calvinistic  wing 
took  one  class  of  minds,  and  Wesley  with 
the  Arminian  wing  took  another  class, 
sweeping  the  whole  field  for  God. 

8,  The  last  point  that  I  will  notice  is  in 
reference  to  ^ecclesiastical  ambition.  The 
Methodist  societies  grew  so  rapidly,  count- 
ing in  a  few  years  their  tens  of  thousands 
of  members,  that  the  idea  of  power  and 
importance  could  not  fail  to  be  protruded. 
This  people,  at  first  so  derided  and  de- 
spised, were  becoming  a  strong  body,  and 
might  very  naturally  be  pardoned  for  glory- 
ing in  the  fact.  The  question  of  organizing 
a  new  church  could  not  fail  to  be  agitated, 
especially  since  the  mother  church  was  so 


40 

averse  to  adopting  or  acknowledging  these 
new-born  children.  There  was,  therefore, 
every  opportunity  for  the  uprising  of  an 
ecclesiastical  ambition  and  pride.  But  such 
a  spirit  would  be  fatal  to  the  simplicity  and 
purity  of  the  spiritual  interests  of  the  body. 
Here  lay  a  great  danger.  Here,  then,  was 
Satan's  grandest  opportunity.  Ecclesiasti- 
cal ambition,  desire  of  earthly  power  and 
name — this  has  ever  been  and  ever  will 
be  his  most  potent  and  most  successful 
weapon.  But  it  was  long  before  he  could 
wield  it  here.  During  the  lifetime  of  Wes- 
ley that  insinuating  thought  was  kept  won- 
derfully in  abeyance. 

This  movement  of  Methodism  was  not  to 
found  a  church  as  a  party,  or  to  establish 
any  institution,  but  merely  to  save  souls. 
It  was  not  an  ecclesiastical  ambition,  but  a 
revival  of  religion.  And  this  doubtless  was 
the  most  potent  reason  that  led  Wesley  to 
be  so  exceedingly  cautious  in  regard  to 
breaking  with  the  Establishment.  He  re- 
peatedly discountenanced  the  idea,  forbid- 
ding his  preachers  to  administer  the  ordi- 
nances, even  when  strongly  urged  by  the 
people  and  the  apparent  necessities  of  the 
hour  to  do  so.  His  attitude  was,  I  believe, 
quite  as  much  in  the  interest  of  spirituality 


_4i_ 

as  of  divinely  ordained  church  order.  At 
any  rate  it  stands  out  as  one  of  the  marvel- 
ous phenomena  of  the  time — that  a  pure  and 
simple  Christianity  flourished  so  long  and  so 
vigorously  without  becoming  leavened  with 
party  and  worldly  pride.  Scarcely  ever,  I 
think,  has  the  wily  deceiver  been  kept  so 
long  outside  an  historical  movement  of  the 
church  before  he  could  find  an  entrance. 

And,  therefore,  as  we  review  all  these 
perils  and  escapes,  the  grand  lesson  that 
this  movement  was  of  God  and  not  of 
man  becomes  indelibly  stamped  on  our 
minds.  If  ever  a  man  did  what  he  did  not 
intend  to  do  ;  if  ever  a  man  was  held  in  the 
hollow  of  God's  hand  ;  if  ever  a  man  was 
directed,  molded,  sustained,  instructed,  and 
guided  by  divine  power,  that  was  John 
Wesley.  He  was  nothing,  but  the  power 
behind  him  was  everything.  It  is  no  part 
of  my  plan  to  trace  the  subsequent  history 
of  Methodism,  or  to  forecast  its  future.  It  is 
certainly  a  very  different  thing  to-day  from 
what  it  was  then.  But  it  is  with  its  early 
days  that  I  am  concerned.  And  what  did  it 
effect  then  ?  It  put  a  new  face  on  English 
history.  It  generated  new  ideas,  infused  a 
new  spirit,  created  new  facts.  And  this  to 
the  degree  that  no  historian,  however  secu- 


42 

lar  his  aim  may  be,  can  ignore  it.  Religion 
was  seen  to  be  not  a  matter  of  form  and  rit- 
ual, but  of  knowledge  and  experience  ;  not 
a  weakling  to  be  defended  with  laws  and 
guns,  but  di  power  that  could  break  its  way 
anywhere  and  hold  its  ground  everywhere. 
And  English  history  reads  so  differently 
because  of  it !  True,  the  proud,  cold  church 
as  a  whole  would  not  receive  it ;  but  never- 
theless it  saved  her ;  yea  more,  it  saved  the 
nation.  Why  did  not  English  deism  roll  on 
in  its  destructive  course  to  its  logical  results.? 
When  France  went  on  in  her  devilish  frenzy 
till  she  made  her  capital  a  hell  upon  earth, 
why  did  England  stop  in  her  dangerous 
ways  }  The  answer  is  plain  :  "  When  the 
enemy  came  in  like  a  flood  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  lifted  up  a  standard  against  him." 


Ill 


5onatban  BDwarDs  anO  tbe  ^movement  in 
IRew  BriQlanD 

E  have  looked  at  the  revival  move- 
ment in  old  England  as  led  by  John 
Wesley,  now  let  us  look  at  the 
same  movement  in  New  England  as  led  by 
Jonathan  Edwards.     I  say  the  same  move- 


43 

ment,  for  this  Great  Awakening,  however 
different  its  manifestations  might  have  been 
in  different  places,  was  all  of  the  same 
mighty  Spirit.  Yet  the  scene  that  we  shall 
now  survey  appears  very  different  from 
that  before  considered,  and  the  man  whose 
life  I  shall  now  portray  is  of  a  type  con- 
siderably removed  from  that  of  the  great 
founder  of  Methodism.  But  if  different, 
no  less  instructive.  The  men  and  their 
labors  differed  because  their  fields  were 
different.  New  England  had  no  dense 
populations  of  neglected,  ignorant,  irrelig- 
ious, and  vicious  people.  It  had  been  but 
an  hundred  years  founded  ;  the  original  set- 
tlers were  men  of  earnest  religious  purpose. 
Religion  was  the  great  fact  of  their  lives. 
And  with  their  descendants  at  this  time  it 
was  still  so,  though  rather  as  a  matter  of 
theory  than  of  heart  experience.  The 
church  was  the  chief  institution  in  every 
New  England  village,  while  next  to  it  and 
tributary  to  it  was  the  school.  The  State 
even  was  subservient.  Every  one  was  in 
some  way  connected  with  the  church  and 
conversant  with"  its  doctrines.  These  doc- 
trines were  the  staple  mental  pabulum  of 
the  people.  Newspapers  were  rare,  but 
sermons  were  thick,  and  long   too.     The 


44 

clergy  were  well  educated.  Harvard  and 
Yale  were  already  founded  for  the  express 
purpose  of  furnishing  an  able  ministry. 
And  under  their  leadership  the  whole  popu- 
lation was  intelligent. 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  the  Congrega- 
\  tionalists  have  ever  been  so  cultured  a  peo- 
*  pie.  They  are,  perhaps,  in  proportion  to 
their  numbers  more  intellectual  than  any 
other  denomination.  From  this  fact  two 
results  have  been  apparent.  First,  when 
the  Holy  Spirit  has  been  largely  poured  out 
and  spiritual  life  has  been  earnestly  main- 
tained, they  have  presented  a  grand  array 
of  stable,  cultured  Christians.  But  when 
spiritual  life  has  waned,  their  declension 
has  been  of  the  intellectual,  rationalistic 
type.  Hence  the  Unitarian  defection  and 
the  great  growth  of  skepticism  and  tran- 
scendentalism that  has  sprung  up  in  and 
around  Boston.  While  the  irreligion  of  old 
England  was  ignorant  and  vicious,  that  of 
New  England  was  intellectual  and  respect- 
able. Therefore  the  man  to  lead  the  re- 
vival in  old  England  was  a  man  of  heart- 
power,  and  the  man  to  lead  the  revival  in 
New  England  was  a  man  of  head-power. 
Not  that  Wesley  was  deficient  in  head,  or 
Edwards  in  heart,  but  the  one  did  his  work 


mainly  through  the  heart,  and  the  other 
through  the  head. 

In  briefly  portraying  my  subject,  let  me 
put  before  you,  first,  the  place  ;  second, 
the  man  ;  third,  the  work  ;  fourth,  the 
consequences. 

I.  One  of  the  most  lovely  and  fertile 
spots  to  be  found  in  generally  barren  and 
rugged  New  England,  is  a  basin  about 
seventy-five  miles  in  circumference  in  the 
center  of  western  Massachusetts.  It  is 
formed  by  the  curvature  of  the  mountain 
ranges  that  come  down  from  the  north, 
overlooked  by  the  grim  sentinels  Tom  and 
Holyoke,  and  windingly  traversed  by  the 
Connecticut  River.  In  the  early  ages  per- 
haps it  was  a  lake,  but  the  river  breaking 
through  the  mountain  rock  drained  it,  leav- 
ing rich  meadows  of  alluvial  deposit.  Such 
a  spot  could  not  long  be  overlooked  by  the 
pioneer  settlers,  nor  fail  to  fall  into  able  and 
enterprising  hands. 

As  early  as  about  1650,  one  Anthony 
Stoddard,  a  stanch  Puritan,  related  by 
marriage  to  Governor  Winthrop,  bought 
from  the  Indians  a  tract  of  land  in  this 
mountain  valley  and  began  the  settlement 
of  what  is  now  Northampton.  This  family 
of  Stoddards,  some  of  whom  still  dwell  in 


46 

Northampton,  have  ever  been  renowned 
in  the  civil,  classical,  and  religious  annals 
of  our  country,  two  of  whom,  especially, 
have  given  guidance  and  inspiration  to 
many  a  student  for  the  ministry — the  eru- 
dite author  of  the  Latin  grammar,  and  the 
sainted  missionary  to  the  Nestorians. 

People  of  high  standing  and  character 
from  Boston  were  associated  with  Mr. 
Stoddard  in  the  settlement  of  the  town,  so 
that  it  soon  assumed  a  commanding  im- 
portance. A  church  was,  of  course,  con- 
stituted at  once.  The  first  pastor  was  a 
brother  of  the  celebrated  Dr.  Increase 
Mather,  of  Boston  ;  the  second,  a  son  of 
Eliot,  the  apostle  to  the  Indians  ;  and  the 
third,  Solomon  Stoddard,  the  son  of  the 
founder  of  the  town.  This  man  made  him- 
self and  his  church  famous  among  all  the 
New  England  churches.  He  was  of  com- 
manding personal  appearance,  of  strong 
intellectual  powers,  and  of  fervent,  earnest 
piety.  He  had  graduated  at  Harvard,  trav- 
eled abroad,  and  preached  somewhat  else- 
where, when  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine  he 
took  the  pastorate  at  Northampton,  which 
he  held  until  he  was  eighty-six,  a  period  of 
fifty-seven  years. 

Consider   for   a   moment   the   influence 


47 

such  a  man  would  wield,  for  such  a  length 
of  time,  in  such  a  position,  amid  such  a 
state  of  society.  The  son  of  the  founder 
of  the  town,  of  fine  talent  and  education, 
the  minister  of  the  parish  for  more  than 
half  a  century,  it  is  no  wonder  that  he  be- 
came a  kind  of  oracle,  a  sort  of  divine 
authority.  The  Indians  even  so  far  caught 
the  general  impression  as  to  regard  him  as 
a  superhuman  being,  so  that  when,  in  one 
of  the  skirmishes  of  the  time,  a  French- 
man leveled  his  gun  at  him,  they  kept  him 
from  firing  by  crying  out  in  terror,  "  That 
man  is  Englishman's  God." 

In  course  of  time  Northampton  became, 
as  we  might  expect,  an  important  center. 
The  regions  round  about  were  tributary  to 
it  and  took  their  impressions  from  it.  Its 
church  was  a  kind  of  authority  for  all  the 
churches  in  that  vicinity  at  least,  and  its 
influence  was  felt  more  or  less  all  over  New 
England.  Probably  no  place  except  Boston 
stood  before  Northampton  in  general  in- 
fluence at  this  time.  Mr.  Stoddard,  more- 
over, became  very  conspicuous  in  ecclesi- 
astical circles  for  his  advocacy  of  what  has 
been  termed,  the  **  Half-way  Covenant," 
a  departure  from  the  Cambridge  platform 
regarding  the   terms  of   admission  to  the 


48 

Lord's  Supper.  The  original  settlers  of 
New  England,  in  constructing  their  plat- 
form, declared  that  a  profession  of  personal 
piety  was  necessary  to  partaking  of  the 
Supper  and  to  full  membership  in  the  church. 
Mr.  Stoddard  claimed  that  such  a  profession 
was  not  necessary,  but  that  the  Supper 
was  a  converting  ordinance  and  could  be 
partaken  of  by  any  who  wished,  and,  in 
fine,  that  conversion  was  not  necessary  to 
full  church-membership,  or  even  to  the  fill- 
ing of  the  ministerial  ofifice.  His  opinions 
were  accepted  by  nearly  all  the  neighbor- 
ing churches  and  by  numbers  in  various 
other  parts  of  New  England,  and  helped  to 
bring  about  that  state  of  spiritual  deadness 
that  preceded  the  great  revival.  He,  of 
course,  conducted  his  own  church  on  this 
principle,  and  the  consequence  was  that  the 
Northampton  church  became  very  large, 
embracing  the  whole  community  without 
regard  to  personal  religious  experience.  It 
was  strong,  wealthy,  dignified,  and  self- 
important,  but  unspiritual.  Yet  to  the 
credit  of  Mr.  Stoddard  it  should  be  said 
that  personally  he  was  a  godly  man,  and 
that  his  own  piety  and  holy  example  pre- 
vented many  excesses  that  might  have  been 
developed  under  such  a  system. 


49 

2.  Thus  much  regarding  the  place,  and 
now  tlie  man.  When  this  influential  pastor 
came  to  be  above  eighty  years  of  age  his 
people,  as  well  as  himself,  began  to  look 
about  for  a  colleague.  Of  course,  so  ex- 
traordinary a  church  must  have  an  extra- 
ordinary pastor,  even  as  a  colleague,  and 
such  an  one  they  found  in  the  person  of 
young  Jonathan  Edwards.  He  was  not  a 
stranger  to  the  Northampton  people,  being 
the  own  grandson  of  their  adored  pastor, 
his  talented  daughter  Esther  having  mar- 
ried the  Rev.  Timothy  Edwards,  of  Wind- 
sor, Conn.,  whose  fifth  child  and  only  son 
was  this  celebrated  Jonathan.  The  family 
of  Edwards  was,  like  that  of  Stoddard, 
highly  talented  and  distinguished.  The 
father  of  Jonathan  was  a  man  of  great 
learning,  who  ministered  most  ably  to  one 
church  for  sixty-four  years,  and  only  began 
to  use  notes  at  the  age  of  seventy,  apolo- 
gizing to  his  people  for  it,  telling  them  that 
his  memory  was  failing  somewhat,  though 
his  judgment  was  as  good  as  ever. 

No  wonder  that  such  an  ancestry  pro- 
duced a  son  whose  powers  as  a  metaphysi- 
cian and  a  philosopher  have  been  frankly 
acknowledged  by  all  the  masters,  both  in 
Europe  and  America.  At  an  early  age  he 
D 


50 

showed  his  remarkable  powers  of  mind, 
.  commencing  the  study  of  Latin  at  six,  en- 
[/  tering  Yale  before  he  was  thirteen,  and 
graduating  with  the  valedictory  at  seven- 
teen. He  was  especially  observant  and 
proficient  in  natural  science,  metaphysics, 
and  mathematics.  When  less  than  twelve 
years  of  age  he  wrote  to  a  gentleman  in 
Europe  a  long  and  exact  account  of  his  ob- 
servations of  the  habits  of  field-spiders, 
showing  how  they  send  their  webs  for  long 
distances  horizontally  from  one  object  to 
another.  He  read  "  Locke's  Essay  on  the 
Human  Understanding  "  at  the  age  of  four- 
teen, and  wrote  quite  a  metaphysical  trea- 
tise himself  about  that  time.  He  can  also 
be  said  to  have  made  in  his  youth  the  prin- 
cipal discoveries  in  astronomy,  electricity, 
and  chemistry  that  have  since  been  an- 
nounced to  the  world.  For  he  always 
studied  with  his  pen  in  his  hand,  noting 
down  any  thought  that  occurred  to  him, 
and  in  these  notes,  which  he  left  behind 
him,  are  suggested  quite  a  number  of  the 
important  facts  in  physics  then  unknown, 
but  which  have  since  been  made  plain  to 
the  world. 

An  acquaintance  with  him  at  this  time 
would  have  discovered  only  an  incipient 


$1 

philosopher  or  metaphysician.  But  God 
had  other  work  for  him  to  do.  He  had 
been  from  his  early  youth  the  subject  of 
religious  impressions,  but  it  was  during  his 
college  course  that  they  ripened  first  into 
complete  confidence  in  Christ,  and  then 
into  his  purpose  to  study  for  the  ministry. 
His  religious  experience,  though  quiet  and 
natural,  was  exceedingly  thorough  and  in- 
telligent, so  that  he  carried  to  the  study  of 
theology,  which  he  commenced  on  taking 
his  bachelor's  degree,  a  most  earnest  pur- 
pose and  extremely  accurate  habits  of 
thought.  He  took  hold  of  theology  just 
as  he  had  of  mathematics,  using  in  fact 
many  mathematical  terms.  A  theological 
question  he  called  a  theorem  in  divinity  ; 
he  "proved"  everything  as  he  advanced 
from  one  point  to  another,  supplementing 
his  demonstration  of  the  main  question 
with  lemmas  and  corollaries. 

After  studying  theology  for  two  years  he 
preached  to  a  Presbyterian  congregation  in 
New  York  City,  then  was  for  two  years  a 
tutor  in  Yale,  during  which  time  he  grew 
most  wonderfully  in  grace  and  in  knowl- 
edge. It  was  within  this  period,  at  differ- 
ent times,  that  he  wrote  those  celebrated 
resolutions  for  the  regulation  of   his  life. 


$2 

They  are  seventy  in  number,  and  cannot 
all  be  quoted  here,  but  they  show  a  mind 
terribly  in  earnest  in  its  great  life-work. 
Let  me  mention  a  few  of  them,  to  give  an 
insight  into  the  heart  of  the  man. 

"  I.  Resolved,  That  I  will  do  whatever  I 
think  to  be  most  to  the  glory  of  God  and 
my  own  good,  profit,  and  pleasure  in  the 
whole  of  my  duration,  without  any  consid- 
eration of  the  time,  whether  now  or  never 
so  many  myriads  of  ages  hence." 

**  10.  Resolved,  When  I  feel  pain,  to  think 
of  the  pain  of  martyrdom  and  of  hell." 

"  22.  Resolved,  To  endeavor  to  obtain  for 
myself  as  much  happiness  in  the  other 
world  as  I  possibly  can,  with  all  the  power, 
might,  vigor,  vehemence,  zeal,  violence  I 
am  capable  of,  or  can  bring  myself  to  ex- 
ert in  any  way  that  can  be  thought  of." 

**  37.  Resolved,  To  inquire  every  night  as 
1  am  going  to  bed  wherein  I  have  been  neg- 
ligent, what  sin  I  have  committed,  and 
wherein  I  have  denied  myself.  Also  at  the 
end  of  every  week,  month,  and  year." 

"51.  Resolved,  That  I  will  act  so  in  every 
respect  as  I  think  I  shall  wish  I  had  done, 
if  I  should  at  last  be  damned." 

"  63.  On  the  supposition  that  there  never 
was  to  be  but  one  individual  in  the  world 


53 

at  any  one  time,  who  was  properly  a  com- 
plete Christian  :  Resolved^  To  act  just  as  I 
would  do  if  I  strove  with  all  my  might  to 
be  that  one  who  should  live  in  my  time." 

Such  was  the  man,  such  his  talent,  and 
such  his  spirit  when  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
^^yi  three  he  began  to  preach  to  the  large,  com- 
'  \  placent,  self-sufficient  congregation  of  North- 
ampton in  1727.  The  blight  of  unspirituality 
and  worldliness  was  at  this  time  on  all  the 
churches.  No  revival  had  been  enjoyed  by 
the  congregation  for  about  ten  years.  Yet 
the  way  of  the  Lord  was  preparing,  and 
Edwards  was  to  be  one  of  his  prime  agents. 

3.  This  young  pastor  at  once  laid  down 
for  himself  the  most  rigid  rules  for  work. 
He  uniformly  wrote  two  sermons  a  week, 
besides  preparing  various  solid  treatises  for 
the  press.  Judging  that  he  was  not  adapted 
to  pastoral  work  he  did  not  attempt  it,  but 
confined  himself  thirteen  or  fourteen  hours 
each  day  at  his  study  forging  arguments  for 
God.  In  about  two  years  his  grandfather 
died  and  he  was  left  sole  minister  of  this 
'<  important  parish.  Most  carefully  he  studied 
the  situation  that  he,  as  the  ambassador  of 
God,  might  fully  and  worthily  meet  it. 
Divine  truth  was  his  weapon.  He  had  no 
grace  of  style  or  delivery.    He  wrote  plainly, 


_54_ 

almost  jaggedly,  and  read  very  closely,  hold- 
ing his  face  quite  near  to  his  manuscript. 
But  the  truth  he  most  masterfully  declared. 
f"^'  There  was,  as  we  may  well  suppose,  an 
;  abundance  of  false  doctrine  prevalent  in 
this  mixed  church.  Many  had  begun  to 
think  that  by  uniting  with  the  church  and 
partaking  of  the  sacrament  they  were  do- 
ing something  by  which  they  might  be 
saved,  and  thus  they  were  losing  sight  of 
Christ.  Edwards  determined  to  meet  this 
state  of  things  by  preaching  boldly  the 
essential  truths  of  the  Calvinistic  system. 
Some  of  his  friends  were  fearful  and  begged 
him  to  hold.  But  he  heeded  them  not.  He 
began  by  a  series  of  discourses  on  "  Justi- 
fication by  Faith,"  which  he  followed  by 
others  on  ''God's  Sovereignty,"  proving 
that  no  one  had  done  or  could  do  anything 
to  merit  or  purchase  salvation ;  that  God  was 
under  no  obligation  to  save  any  one;  that  all 
men  were  under  condemnation,  not  having 
a  word  to  say;  that  nothing  save  God's  for- 
bearance kept  any  one  out  of  hell  for  an 
instant.  One  of  his  favorite  texts  and  fre- 
quent quotations  was  that  strong  passage 
from  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  "  That  ev- 
ery mouth  may  be  stopped  and  that  all  the 
world  may  become  guilty  before  God." 


55 

The  Holy  Spirit  now  began  to  be  won- 
derfully poured  out,  sealing  the  truth  of  the 
pulpit,  and  such  was  Edwards'  tremendous 
earnestness  and  argumentative  power  that 
he  seemed  for  the  time  to  carry  all  before 
him.  He  realized  that  all  out  of  Christ 
were  on  the  very  verge  of  hell,  and  help- 
less in  themselves  to  get  away  from  the 
perilous  position.  Yea,  more,  they  seemed 
to  be  slipping  in  without  any  power  to  hold 
themselves.  All  that  men  could  do  was  to 
cast  themselves  helpless  on  the  mercy  of 
God  and  the  merits  of  Christ,  if  perchance 
they  might  thus  be  saved.  And  mighty, 
mighty  indeed  were  the  results  of  this  pre- 
sentation of  truth  with  the  accompanying 
power  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Northampton 
was  shaken,  and  the  whole  valley  was 
moved,  for  Edwards  did  not  confine  his 
labors  to  his  own  pulpit.  The  realities  of 
eternity  seemed  to  stand  in  very  sight,  and 
men  cried  out  in  agony  of  soul.  The  world 
and  its  affairs  seemed  forgotten.  Under 
the  spell  of  those  powerful  sermons  time 
and  place  were  all  swallowed  up  in  the 
terrible  realities  of  the  eternal  world.  Once 
when  he  preached  on  the  judgment  some  of 
his  auditors  really  expected  to  see  the  Lord 
coming  in  the  clouds  as  soon  as  the  sermon 


J6_ 

closed.  And  when  he  preached  at  Enfield 
his  famous  sermon  entitled,  "  Sinners  in  the 
Hands  of  an  Angry  God,"  from  the  graphic 
text,  **  Their  feet  shall  slide  in  due  time," 
such  was  the  influence  upon  the  congrega- 
tion, which  had  assembled  in  a  careless 
mood,  that  some  of  them  actually  caught 
hold  of  the  benches  to  save  themselves 
from  slipping  into  hell.  Yet  there  was 
nothing  exciting  in  his  manner,  for  stand- 

/  ing  quite  still  and  reading  very  closely  he 
scarcely  raised  his  hand  except  to  turn  the 
leaves  of  his  manuscript.  But  the  truth 
was  presented  with  strong  argument,  in  a 
mathematical  exactness  of  demonstration 
whose  conclusions  could  not  be  avoided. 
And  God  was  present  in  great  power  to 
send  the  truth  home,  so  that  some  three 

'y  hundred  were  hopefully  converted  in  the 
Northampton  congregation  in  the  course  of 
six  months.  This  was  in  1734-1735,  a  little 
previous  to  the  more  general  awakening 
throughout  the  country.  Edwards  wrote 
an  account  of  this  powerful  work,  which 
was  published  in  Boston,  republished  in 
London,  and  extensively  circulated  in  Eng- 
land and  Scotland  as  well  as  at  home,  thus 
preparing  the  way  for  the  wide-spreading 
work  that  broke  out  so  generally  in  1740. 


57 

Into  the  particulars  of  this  general  work 
I  cannot  enter.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  about 
1740  the  revival  reappeared,  not  only  at 
Northampton  and  vicinity,  but  in  almost 
every  church  throughout  New  England. 
The  same  indications  of  overwhelming  spir- 
itual power  were  manifest  in  many  places 
under  the  ordinary  ministry.  In  numerous 
instances  the  people  would  so  cry  out  in 
public  service,  that  pastors  were  obliged 
to  pause  in  the  preaching  from  time  to 
time  to  allow  the  tumult  to  subside.  And 
in  some  cases  it  was  customary  to  carry 
out  of  the  church  to  some  neighboring 
house  those  that  were  overcome  by  the 
power,  in  order  that  the  services  at  the 
church  might  proceed. 

To  add  to  the  interest,  Whitefield  trav- 
ersed the  land,  preaching  to  those  im- 
mense audiences  that  frequently  assem- 
bled in  the  open  air  because  no  church 
could  contain  them,  and  cavalcades  of  de- 
voted friends  accompanied  him  from  one 
town  to  another,  thus  transmitting  the  en- 
thusiasm from  place  to  place.  Edwards 
was  delighted  to  have  him  visit  Northamp- 
ton, and  himself  sat  in  his  own  pulpit 
weeping  like  a  child,  as  that  matchless 
preacher  swayed  with  his  burning  pathos 


58 

the  auditors  who  were  usually  fed  on  the 
more  argumentative  sort  of  preaching. 

Gilbert  Tennent  also  came  up  from  New 
Jersey  and  preached  with  most  salutary  ef- 
fect in  Boston  and  throughout  southern  Mas- 
sachusetts and  Connecticut.  A  newspaper 
was  established  for  the  express  purpose  of 
reporting  the  progress  of  the  revival — the 
first  religious  newspaper,  I  believe,  ever 
printed — and  thus  the  friends  of  God  were 
everywhere  cheered  and  aided  in  their  work. 

A  very  moderate  estimate  of  the  number 
I  converted  in  the  American  colonies  at  this 
^'^  time  is  fifty  thousand,  which  in  proportion 
O.  to  the  population  would  be  equal  to  one 
million  in  our  time.  And  many  of  these,  it 
must  be  remembered,  were  people  who  had 
before  maintained  a  form  of  godliness  and 
were  intelligently  acquainted  with  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  but  destitute  of  the  power. 

4.  The  consequences.  The  American  re- 
vival was  more  of  a  work  within  the  church 
than  the  Methodist  movement.  Wesley 
could  get  scarcely  any  countenance  from 
the  Establishment,  so  that  he  was  obliged  to 
labor  outside  among  the  neglected  classes, 
and  ultimately  to  found  a  new  church.  Ed- 
wards and  the  New  England  pastors  gener- 
ally reaped  their  harvest  principally  from 


y 


J9_ 

their  own  congregations.  And  yet  even 
here  the  enemy  found  a  foothold  and  stirred 
up  the  spirit  of  opposition.  Some  pastors, 
cold-hearted  or  unconverted,  repelled  the 
work  so  that  in  a  considerable  number  of 
cases,  particularly  in  Connecticut,  new  con- 
gregations were  formed,  calling  themselves 
Separatists,  the  majority  of  whom  ultimately 
became  Baptists.  And  even  where  there  was 
no  formal  division,  there  was  a  divergence  of 
sentiment  in  regard  to  the  value  and  propri- 
ety of  the  revival.  As  remarked  in  the  pre- 
vious chapter,  there  are  almost  always  at 
such  times  high  excitements  and  even  ex- 
travagances among  the  demonstrative  which 
greatly  offend  persons  of  cooler  tastes  and 
temperament.  These  things  are  emphasized 
by  such  persons  and  made  the  occasion  for 
condemning  the  revival  as  a  whole.  This 
was  the  case  even  in  New  England.  There 
was  thus  developed  a  party  that  opposed 
the  movement,  having  for  its  champion  a 
Doctor  Chauncy,  of  Boston,  who  published 
several  works  against  the  revival.  Ed- 
wards very  naturally  replied  to  him  and 
became  the  champion  of  the  revival  party, 
and  it  is  largely  for  this  reason  that  he  has 
so  generally  been  regarded  as  its  leader.  He 
did  not  lead  it  as  did  Wesley  by  traveling 


6o 

from  place  to  place,  overseeing  the  work. 
But  it  began  with  him,  and  found  in  him  its 
principal  defender. 

Edwards  was  never  an  advocate  of  ex- 
travagances, but  he  well  knew  from  his 
own  studies  that  a  clear  apprehension  of 
the  truth  of  God  might  well  strike  the  sin- 
ner with  dismay,  and  he  well  knew  from 
his  own  experience  that  a  real  view  of  the 
matchless  beauties  of  the  Saviour  could 
transport  the  beholder  out  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  earthly  things.  He  himself  had 
sometimes  been  so  overcome  with  the  glory 
of  God  in  some  of  his  retirements  as  to 
lose  his  consciousness  for  a  considerable 
time.  And  his  beautiful,  saint-like  wife, 
Sarah  Pierrepont,  had  at  times  been  so 
rapt  in  the  contemplation  of  God  as  to  lose 
her  strength  and  to  lie  in  a  trance-like  state 
for  hours.  He  could,  therefore,  well  sym- 
pathize with  others  of  a  more  excitable 
nature  who  were  sometimes  carried  beyond 
the  bounds  of  moderation. 

But  a  most  solemn  and  instructive  con- 
sequence of  the  work  remains  to  be  told, 
hi  the  course  of  his  studies  and  of  his  ex- 
perience, Edwards  came  to  see  how  im- 
proper and  unsafe  it  was  to  admit  to  the 
church  of  God  people  who  knew  nothing 


6i 

about  experimental  religion.  He  saw  how 
radically  wrong  was  the  theory  of  his 
grandfather  Stoddard  on  this  point ;  how 
impossible  it  was  under  this  system  to 
maintain  discipline,  and  what  a  damaging 
effect  it  produced  upon  the  hearts  of  the 
members,  leading  them  to  think  that  they 
were  thus  in  some  measure  the  people  of 
God,  and  so  keeping  them  from  Christ. 
For  years  he  studied  and  pondered  the 
subject,  and  after  a  time  wrote  his  cele- 
brated treatise  on  the  *'  Religious  Affec- 
tions," for  the  purpose  of  showing  what 
true  religion  was,  and  what  feelings  one 
ought  to  possess  in  order  to  be  a  member 
of  Christ's  visible  people.  Finally  he  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  could  no  longer 
admit  any  to  the  church  uoless  they  made 
a  credible  profession  of  faith  in  Christ. 
He  was  well  aware  that  this  decision  would 
cost  him  dearly,  but  he  could  not  violate 
his  sacred  convictions. 

At  last  the  issue  came  on  this  wise.  It 
was  the  custom  under  the  system  of  Mr. 
Stoddard,  when  any  one  was  to  be  married, 
to  first  unite  with  the  church  in  order  to 
proper  standing  as  the  head  of  a  family.  In 
the  autumn  of  1748,  when  Edwards  had 
been  pastor  of  the  church  about  twenty 


1/ 


62 

years,  a  young  man  intending  to  be  married, 
presented  himself  for  membership.  This 
was  a  fair  place  for  Edwards  to  declare 
himself,  as  his  mind  was  now  fully  made  up. 
The  young  man  asked  for  membership  in 
Christ's  church,  not  because  he  was  anx- 
ious to  confess  Christ,  but  because  he  was 
to  become  the  head  of  a  family  and  de- 
sired the  proper  standing  for  that  position. 
The  pastor  then  made  known  his  senti- 
ments, and  soon  after  called  the  leading 
men  of  his  church  together  and  laid  the 
matter  before  them,  asking  that  he  might 
preach  a  few  sermons  on  the  subject,  ex- 
plaining the  change  in  his  views.  But  to 
this  request  they  would  not  consent,  fear- 
ing that  so  able  a  reasoner  would  win 
many  to  his  side.  On  the  other  hand, 
i/they  immediately  set  measures  on  foot  to 
(remove  him  from  the  pastorate.  The  whole 
town  was  stirred  in  view  of  such  an  inno- 
vation, and  the  majority  determined  that 
they  never  would  yield  or  be  convinced. 
Many  of  the  influential  men  in  town  had 
been  admitted  to  the  church  by  Mr.  Stod- 
dard as  unregenerate  persons,  and  to  refuse 
to  admit  any  more  upon  that  basis,  was 
virtually  to  say  that  they  had  no  right  in 
the  church.     And  should  it  be  that  their 


63 

high  standing  in  the  community  was  to  be 
lowered  by  the  theological  opinions  of  a 
single  man  ?  Should  they  allow  that  this 
young  Mr.  Edwards  had  a  truer  conception 
of  propriety  than  the  great  Mr.  Stoddard, 
who  had  been  their  renowned  leader  for 
more  than  half  a  century  ?  No,  indeed. 
Of  course  the  evil  heart  of  unbelief  and 
the  machinations  of  the  adversary  were  at 
the  bottom  of  it  all.  But  traditional  eccle- 
siastical customs  are  powerful  and  subtle 
weapons. 

I  cannot  tarry  to  detail  the  controversy ; 
but  after  two  years  of  sad,  and,  on  the  one 
side,  shameful  contention,  a  council  called 
from  the  neighboring  churches  that  had 
been  under  Mr.  Stoddard's  influence,  by  a 
majority  of  one  dismissed  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards from  the  pastorate  of  the  Northamp- 
ton church.  Satan  was  jubilant,  and  even 
went  so  far  as  to  induce  the  church  to  pass 
a  resolution  forbidding  Edwards  ever  to 
preach  in  that  pulpit  again,  even  as  a  tem- 
porary supply. 

Thus  was  the  leading  minister  of  all  New 
England,  and  the  champion  of  the  great  re- 
vival, wounded  in  the  house  of  his  friends 
and  shamefully  ejected  from  one  of  the 
first   pulpits  in  the   land,  simply  for  con- 


64 

tending  for  the  purity  of  Christ's  church. 
After  waiting  for  some  time  he  received  a 
call  to  the  western  part  of  the  State,  to  the 
joint  work  of  preaching  to  a  frontier  church 
and  laboring  as  missionary  among  the  In- 
dians. He  accepted  it  and  toiled  most 
devotedly  in  this  situation  for  several 
years,  during  which  time  he  wrote  his 
ablest  work,  his  treatise  on  the  "Freedom 
of  the  Will,"  which  has  made  his  name 
famous  over  all  the  world.  From  this  ob- 
scure station  he  was  very  unexpectedly 
called  to  the  presidency  of  what  is  now 
the  College  of  New  Jersey,  at  Princeton, 
an  institution  that  grew  out  of  the  spirit 
and  needs  of  the  Great  Awakening.  He 
had  just  entered  upon  his  duties  there 
when  death  cut  him  down,  at  a  time  and 
in  a  position  where  it  seemed  that  his  best 
and  greatest  work  could  be  done.  So  it 
appeared  to  his  friends  as  they  stood  around 
his  bed,  and  supposing  him  unconscious, 
they  gave  vent  to  their  thoughts,  lament- 
ing his  loss.  But  the  dying  hero  heard 
them,  and  rousing  himself  he  said,  '"*^Trust 
in  God  and  ye  need  not  fear."  These  were 
his  last  words. 

But   Satan's   victory  did   not   prove   so 
grand  as  it  at  first  appeared.  Yea,  it  turned 


6; 

out  to  be  a  defeat.  For  the  humble,  quiet, 
Christlike  spirit  with  which  the  great  man 
bowed  to  his  fate,  exchanging  with  cheer- 
fulness one  of  the  first  pulpits  in  the  land 
for  a  lonely  mission  to  the  Indians,  put  to 
shame  and  convicted  his  opposers,  so  that 
some  of  them,  even  in  his  lifetime,  came 
to  him  and  with  bitter,  repentant  tears  con- 
fessed their  sin. 

Attention  was  moreover  called  to  the 
principle  in  debate,  and  the  denomination, 
as  a  whole,  saw  that  Edwards  was  right, 
and  adopted  his  practice.  So  that  it  has, 
after  sloughing  off  the  Unitarian  element, 
been  saved  to  evangelical  principles.  For 
years  Stoddardism  has  been  almost  un- 
known among  the  Congregational  churches. 
To  be  sure  there  are  some  of  their  clergy 
even  now  that  seem  to  advocate  something 
like  it,  and  there  always  will  be  the  logical 
tendency  to  it  so  long  as  infant  baptism  is 
practised,  which  is  the  root  of  the  whole 
evil.  But  should  any  adopt  it,  it  will  bring 
the  old  story  over  again,  a  corrupt  church, 
and  a  departure  from  the  faith. 

Again,  the  respite  which  Edwards  enjoyed 
from  the  labors  of  so  exhausting  a  pastor- 
ate, gave  him  leisure  to  produce  those  pro- 
found works  which  have  done  so  much  for 
E 


66 

the  establishment  of  a  correct  theology. 
So  that  there  is  no  name  of  which  the 
Congregational  churches  are  more  proud 
to-day  than  that  of  Jonathan  Edwards. 
Just  as  the  glory  of  Christ  shone  out,  and 
was  in  great  measure  achieved  by  his  deep 
and  bitter  humiliation,  so  it  was  with  Ed- 
wards. He  did  not  live  to  enjoy  the  victory 
on  earth,  but  it  came,  as  it  always  will 
come,  sooner  or  later,  to  those  who  stand 
by  the  truth  and  suffer  for  its  sake. 

And  last,  the  great  revival  to  which  he 
gave  so  much  of  his  best  strength,  and  for 
which  he  suffered  so  much  disgrace,  has 
assumed  its  true  place  in  history,  and  is 
ever  being  better  understood  by  those  who 
are  truly  on  the  Lord's  side.  Those  who 
labored  in  it  are  remembered,  while  those 
who  opposed  it  are  forgotten.  Chauncy 
is  a  name  unheard,  while  Edwards  is  on 
every  tongue.  "  The  name  of  the  wicked,'* 
and  of  those  who  come  to  be  in  any  man- 
ner arrayed,  even  though  unwittingly,  on 
the  side  of  the  wicked,  **  shall  rot,  but  the 
righteous  shall  be  an  everlasting  remem- 
brance.'* **  They  that  be  wise  shall  shine 
as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament,  and 
they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as 
the  stars  forever  and  ever." 


67 


IV 


Gilbert  ^ennent  anD  tbc  fnlovcmcnt  in  tbe 
fnliDDlc  Colonics 

lAVING  noted  the  revival  movement 
in  New  England  among  the  Con- 
gregationalists,  we  are  now  to  con- 
sider it  in  the  Middle  Colonies  among  the 
Presbyterians. 

But  we  must,  at  the  outset,  remember 
that  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  America 
was  at  this  time  in  a  situation  quite  differ- 
ent from  that  of  its  sister  denomination 
already  considered.  Instead  of  being  old, 
strong,  well-established  and  equipped,  it 
was  rather  in  the  weakness  and  destitution 
of  infancy,  and  lacking  somewhat  also  in 
homogeneousness.  The  first  Presbyterian 
church  that  was  fully  established  in  this 
country  was  that  of  Philadelphia,  in  1703, 
the  very  year  in  which  Wesley  and  Ed- 
wards and  Tennent  were  born,  conse- 
quently the  denomination  could  not  be  very 
large  when  these  men  came  upon  the  stage 
of  active  life.  It  had  not  then,  as  it  has 
now,  a  General  Assembly,  various  synods, 
numerous  presbyteries,  and  strong  institu- 
tions   of    learning.      There   was,    at    tbe 


/ 


68 

commencement  of  this  period,  but  one 
synod,  that  of  Philadelphia,  consisting  of 
less  than  half  a  dozen  presbyteries.  Yet 
the  denomination,  actually  so  small  and 
apparently  insignificant,  was  potentially 
and  prospectively  large  and  important.  The 
prominent  part  it  had  acted  in  European 
affairs,  the  large  constituency  it  there  pos- 
sessed, with  the  strong  incoming  tide  of 
immigration,  and  the  wide  field  here  open- 
ing before  it,  made  it  of  great  value  in  the 
religious  history  of  this  continent.  There- 
fore God,  in  his  gracious  visitation  of  his 
people  at  this  time,  could  not  fail  to  have 
in  tender  and  high  regard  this  promising 
nucleus  of  a  strong  church.  There  was 
need  that  this  important  denomination 
should  receive  such  divine  impulses  as 
should  make  its  coming  career  strong  for 
the  truth  and  the  life  of  vital  godliness. 
<r  This  church  had,  in  common  with  others, 
fallen  considerably  away  from  the  true  life 
and  walk  of  a  Christian  people.  Its  creed, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  as  good  as  those  of 
its  neighbors,  in  fact  better  ;  but  the  in- 
terpretation put  upon  it,  and  the  practice 
growing  out  of  it,  were  damaging  enough  to 
vital  religion.  The  Presbyterians  have,  in- 
deed, never  formally  held,  as  have  the  Con- 


69 

gregationalists,  that  unregenerate  persons  / 
ought  to  be  admitted  to  full  membership  1 
and  to  the  ministry.  But  they  have  held, 
or  at  least  numbers  of  them  held  at  this 
time,  that  it  was  quite  difficult,  in  fact  im- 
possible, to  discover  from  the  affections 
whether  regeneration  had  taken  place  or 
not.  The  prevailing  sentiment  was,  that 
it  was  taken  for  granted  that  all  those  who 
had  been  baptized  and  were  not  scandalous 
in  their  lives,  were  regenerate  without  re-  \l 
gard  to  their  emotions  or  affections.  In 
fact,  baptism  was  thus  practically  regarded 
as  a  converting  ordinance.  A  conscious 
experience  of  the  regenerating  work  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  was  not  insisted  upon,  and 
hence  a  large  portion  of  the  Presbyterian 
membership  was  without  vital  piety. 

Another  thing  to  be  noticed  is,  that  this 
church,  though  exceedingly  tenacious  that 
her  ministers  should  be  none  other  than  V 
thoroughly  educated  men,  had  neverthe-  ^\ 
less  no  institution  for  their  training.  She 
was  dependent,  therefore,  for  the  care  of 
her  fast-forming  congregations  in  New  Jer- 
sey, Pennsylvania,  and  Delaware,  upon 
such  ministers  as  emigrated  from  Europe, 
or  those  that  were  educated  at  the  Congre- 
gational colleges  of   New  England.      The 


70 

supply  from  the  former  source  was  doubt- 
ful both  as  to  number  and  quality,  while 
that  from  the  latter  was  not  exactly  in 
accord  with  the  customs  and  spirit  of  Pres- 
byterianism. 

The  great  need,  then,  of  this  denomina- 
V  tion  was  a  revival  of  true  religion  and  a 
supply  of  true  ministers.  These  blessings 
God  was  pleased  to  send  in  considerable 
degree  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
Tennent  family . 

I  have  placed  the  name  of  Gilbert  Ten- 
nent foremost  in  this  movement,  because 
he  was  the  most  distinguished  member  of 
this  noted  family.  Yet  he  was  not  such  a 
pre-eminent  and  world-widely  recognized 
leader  among  the  Presbyterians  as  was 
Wesley  among  Methodists,  or  even  Edwards 
among  Congregationalists.  Perhaps  the 
genius  of  Presbyterianism  would  not  admit 
of  any  one  great  hero.  '  Its  distinguishing 
characteristic  is  steadiness  and  moderation. 
It  occupies  middle  ground,  avoiding  all  ex- 
tremes, and  hence  can  apparently  have  no 
grand  leader  in  any  particular  direction. 
The  fiery  heart  of  Methodism  may  appro- 
priately exhibit  such  a  fervent  hero  as 
Wesley,  and  the  intellectual  soil  of  Con- 
gregationalism might  produce  such  a  mental 


71 

hero  as  Edwards.  But  how  is  it  possible 
for  steadiness  and  adherence  to  the  golden 
mean  to  set  forth  a  pre-eminent  leader  ? 

The  Tennent  family,  God's  chosen  agent 
of  blessing  to  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
consisted  of  the  father,  William,  and  four 
sons,  Gilbert,  John,  William,  and  Charles, 
all  five  able  ministers  of  the  gospel.  They 
were  natives  of  Ireland,  and  formerly, 
while  the  sons  were  children,  members  of 
the  Episcopal  Church.  But  God  in  his 
providence  touched  their  hearts  and  led 
them  forth  into  the  wilds  of  America,  and 
into  the  more  congenial  home  of  the  Pres- 
byterian  body.  About  the  year  1720  we 
find  the  father  pastor  of  a  small  church 
on  Neshaminy  Creek,  Bucks  County,  Pa., 
about  ten  miles  north  of  Philadelphia. 
This  senior  Tennent  was  a  man  of  most 
excellent  education,  and  thoroughly  filled 
with  the  Holy  Ghost — one  of  the  forerun- 
ners, as  was  the  senior  Wesley,  of  the 
great  awakening.  God  was  using  him  for 
ends  far  beyond  his  own  knowledge.  His 
heart  was  moved  by  the  condition  of  affairs. 
He  looked  upon  the  young  church  of  his 
choice,  needing  a  ministry  but  having  no 
schools  ;  he  looked  upon  his  own  four  boys 
growing  up  about  him,  needing  an  educa- 


72 

tion  but  having  no  opportunities,  and  he 
determined,  lone  man  though  he  was,  and 
poor  at  that,  to  do  what  he  could  in  the 
strength  of  the  Lord  to  supply  this  pressing 
need.  His  own  little  dwelling  had  no  extra 
rooms,  but  the  trees  of  the  forest  were 
growing  all  around,  and  strong,  honest 
muscle  lay  in  his  arm.  And  therefore, 
taking  his  axe,  in  true  imitation  of  the  sons 
of  the  prophets  of  old,  he  felled  trees  and 
built  a  log  house  of  about  twenty  feet 
square,  which  he  devoted  to  the  purpose  of 
sacred  learning. 

In  the  discussions  which  afterward  arose, 
his  opponents  derisively  dubbed  it  *'  Log 
College,"  and  as  such  it  has  passed  into  his- 
tory. In  marked  contrast  with  the  stately 
four-story  brick  and  stone  edifices  that  we 
are  wont  to  call  theological  seminaries  was 
this  lowly  cabin  of  the  wilderness,  and  in 
marked  contrast  with  the  richly  endowed 
faculties  and  heavily  laden  library  shelves 
that  we  deem  necessary  to  the  conduct  of 
such  institutions  was  this  lone  and  poor 
backwoods  parish  minister,  with  the  few 
books  at  his  disposal.  But  perhaps  never 
in  modern  times  has  any  institution  of  sacred 
learning  been  more  honored  of  God  than 
was  this.     The  classical  training  here  ob- 


73 

tained  was  of  no  mean  quality,  for  it  may 
be  doubted  if  the  students  of  Princeton  to- 
day could  furnish  better  Latin  theses  than 
did  the  graduates  of  Log  College  ;  but  the 
chief  glory  was  that  the  Holy  Ghost  was 
there  in  large  measure.  There  this  man  of 
God  with  his  four  sons,  and  many  other 
young  men  looking  forward  to  the  ministry, 
studied  and  prayed  and  became  filled  with 
intellectual  and  spiritual  might.  The  place 
became  the  headquarters  of  the  spiritual  ele- 
ment of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  These 
men  were  of  the  same  stamp  with  Wesley 
and  Edwards,  believing  in  a  religion  of  the 
heart  that  could  be  known  and  felt,  in  dis- 
tinction from  a  religion  of  creed  and  ritual 
whose  existence  must  be  guessed  at. 

This  school  had  been  in  operation  about 
fifteen  years  at  the  time  when  the  revival 
wave  rose  so  high  during  Whitefield's  visit 
to  this  country  ;  and  it  had,  of  course,  sent 
forth  quite  a  number  of  young  and  zealous 
ministers  who  entered  warmly  into  the 
work.  Among  these  were  the  four  Ten- 
nent  brothers,  Gilbert,  who  settled  in  New 
Brunswick,  New  Jersey,  John  and  William, 
who  successively  occupied  the  pulpit  at 
Monmouth  or  Freehold,  and  Charles,  whose 
field  was  in  Delaware. 


X 


74 

Perhaps  in  no  way  can  we  better  under- 
stand the  spirit  and  temper  of  these  men, 
and  learn  how  intensely  real  to  them  were 
divine  things  than  by  noting  several  inci- 
dents of  their  remarkable  lives. 

The  story  of  John's  conversion  and  brief 
ministry  is  well  calculated  to  bring  tears 
and  smiles  in  quick  succession.  He  had 
been  an  exemplary  youth,  his  only  apparent 
sin  being  merely  a  too  great  indulgence  in 
temper.  But  when  he  was  brought  under 
conviction  his  anxiety  and  anguish  were 
exceedingly  intense,  causing  him  to  pray 
unceasingly  for  four  successive  days  and 
nights.  Toward  morning  of  the  fourth 
night  he  was  quite  overcome,  the  power  of 
speech  departed,  and  his  attendants  sup- 
posed him  to  be  dying.  Then  in  this  dire 
extremity  the  peace  of  God  took  possession 
of  him,  his  strength  revived,  and  he  broke 
out  in  rapturous  praises,  telling  all  whom 
he  could  find  of  the  great  things  God  had 
done  for  his  soul.  He  gave  the  freshness 
of  his  youth  and  his  new-found  joy  to  the 
pastorate  at  Freehold,  and  in  less  than  two 
years,  when  consumption  cut  him  down, 
his  congregation  was  completely  trans- 
formed from  a  careless,  lifeless  people  into 
one  of  the  greatest  devotion,   spirit,  and 


7$ 

earnestness.  He  fairly  bore  them  on  and 
in  his  heart,  so  that  his  great  care  in  dying 
was  for  them,  lest  they  should  be  left  as 
sheep  without  a  shepherd,  a  regard  which 
they  most  fully  reciprocated,  lamenting 
most  deeply  his  loss.  There  is  still  extant 
a  fragment  of  an  old  manuscript  book  kept 
by  the  session  of  his  church,  in  which,  in 
a  minute  of  his  death,  he  is  called  "the 
reverend  and  dear  Mr.  John  Tennent,  the 
most  laborious,  successful,  well-qualified, 
and  pious  pastor  this  age  afforded,  though 
but  a  youth  of  twenty-four  years  five 
months  and  eleven  days."  He  had  lived 
so  near  heaven,  and  had  so  carried  his  peo- 
ple with  him,  that  it  seemed  to  them  that  no 
one  could  possibly  fill  his  place.  His  brother 
William,  however,  most  completely  met  the 
want,  having  been  peculiarly  qualified  by 
one  of  those  rare  experiences  that  so  won- 
derfully put  a  man  in  sympathy  with  the 
other  world,  namely,  a  trance. 

The  story  of  IVilliam's  trance  has  been 
often  told,  and  yet  it  will  bear  repetition. 
He  was  at  the  time  studying  with  his  brother 
Gilbert  in  New  Brunswick,  and  so  urgently 
applied  himself  to  his  books  as  to  fall  sick, 
apparently  with  consumption.  During  his 
sickness   his   religious   hopes   became   ob- 


76 

scured,  which  added  to  his  weakness  and 
carried  him  fast  toward  the  grave.  One 
day,  while  conversing  with  his  brother  in 
reference  to  his  spiritual  condition,  he 
fainted  and  died  to  all  appearances.  The 
body  was  laid  out  according  to  the  usual 
custom,  and  an  hour  appointed  for  the 
funeral  the  next  day.  His  regular  physi- 
cian, however,  who  was  much  attached  to 
him,  was  absent  from  home  at  the  time  of 
his  supposed  death,  and  on  returning  at 
evening  was  exceedingly  surprised  at  the 
event,  and  after  examining  the  body  ex- 
pressed doubts  as  to  whether  death  had 
actually  taken  place,  thinking  that  he  could 
perceive  a  little  warmth  in  the  region  of  the 
heart.  He  begged,  therefore,  for  the  priv- 
ilege of  attempting  to  restore  consciousness, 
which  was  very  reluctantly  granted,  for  the 
relatives  were  perfectly  satisfied  that  the 
young  man  was  dead.  The  funeral,  how- 
ever, was  postponed  till  the  third  day,  the 
physician  meanwhile  using  every  means  of 
restoration  within  his  power,  but  in  vain. 
The  third  day  and  the  time  of  the  funeral 
arrived,  when  the  determined  doctor  begged 
for  one  hour  more,  and  when  that  was  gone 
for  half  an  hour  more,  and  when  that  was 
gone  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  more.    By  this 


time  Gilbert,  at  whose  house  the  strange 
scene  was  passing,  became  somewhat  im- 
patient with  the  physician,  and  entering  the 
room  declared  that  it  was  shameful  to  be  thus 
working  over  a  dead  man,  and  demanded  that 
the  funeral  exercises  should  immediately  be 
proceeded  with.  At  this  critical  moment 
the  supposed  corpse  opened  its  eyes  and 
groaned,  and  in  the  course  of  two  hours 
more  was  restored  to  a  sort  of  conscious- 
ness, yet  his  recovery  was  very  slow,  and 
for  a  time  extremely  doubtful.  And  when 
at  length  assured,  as  to  his  bodily  life,  his 
friends  discovered  to  their  consternation 
that  he  had  no  knowledge  of  his  former 
life  or  acquirements.  The  work  of  his 
education  was  begun  over  again  by  teach- 
ing him  the  alphabet,  and  proceeding 
through  the  lessons  of  childhood.  But  one 
day,  when  reciting  his  Latin  lesson  from 
*^  Cornelius  Nepos,^^  he  suddenly  started, 
clapped  his  hand  upon  his  head,  hesitated 
a  moment,  and  then  said,  "  It  seems  to  me 
I  have  read  that  book  before  ";  and  in  a 
short  time  the  memory  of  his  former  knowl- 
edge came  back  to  him  as  of  old. 

But  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the 
case  is  his  experience  during  the  three 
days   in  which   he  was   apparently  dead, 


78 

and  the  influence  that  it  had  on  his  after- 
life. He  never  alluded  to  it  descriptively, 
except  when  pressed  by  his  friends  to  do 
so;  for,  he  said,  it  was,  like  Paul's  rapture 
into  heaven,  unutterable.  It  was  some- 
thing so  sacred  and  so  far  beyond  the 
power  of  earthly  language  to  describe, 
that  it  was  almost  useless  and  well-nigh 
sacrilegious  to  attempt  any  narration  of  it. 
He  promised,  however,  to  leave  among  his 
writings  some  account  of  it.  But  he  died 
amid  the  confused  times  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War,  and  his  papers  were  lost  and 
destroyed,  so  that  we  shall  never  have  a 
minute  description  of  this  precious  ex- 
perience. Suffice  it  to  say,  that  he  felt 
himself  transported  to  heaven,  where  he 
saw  an  indescribable  glory  and  heard  un- 
speakable words  and  unearthly  music,  and 
was  just  about  to  join  himself  to  the  happy 
company  of  angels,  when  his  attendant 
put  his  hand  upon  his  shoulder  and  said  : 
**You  must  go  back";  this  gave  him  a 
pang  so  that  he  groaned,  and  opening  the 
eyes  of  his  body,  saw  the  physician  and 
his  brother  bending  over  him  and  realized 
that  he  was  yet,  or  again,  on  earth.  The 
period  of  his  absence  did  not  seem  to  him 
more  than   twenty  minutes,  but   it  gave 


79 

him  such  a  view  of  the  glory  and  reality 
of  heaven,  and  of  the  comparative  insig- 
nificance and  unsubstantiality  of  earthly 
things,  that  he  became  ever  after  chiefly 
engaged  with  "  that  world,"  so  that  it  was 
with  difficulty  that  he  could  attend  to 
earthly  matters  sufficiently  to  keep  his 
material  interests  in  proper  condition.  For 
three  years,  as  he  averred,  that  heavenly 
scene  was  never  out  of  his  mind,  and  dur- 
ing nearly  half  a  century  that  he  lived 
after  it,  to  preach  the  gospel,  it  stamped 
him  peculiarly  as  an  ambassador  from  the 
other  world.  His  obliviousness  of  earthly 
matters  and  methods  seemed  in  some  in- 
stances an  apparent  damage  to  him,  bring- 
ing him  into  various  difficulties. 

Yet  God  provided  for  him,  and  on  one 
occasion  seemed  to  grant  him  miraculous 
deliverance.  It  was  on  this  wise.  Some 
enemies  of  the  gospel  brought  an  action  at 
law  against  him,  wherein  for  his  defense, 
and  in  accordance  with  the  truth,  he  would 
need  to  prove  an  alibi,  he  having  been  ab- 
sent in  Maryland  on  a  preaching  tour  at  a 
certain  specified  time.  Had  he  been  like 
other  men  versed  in  and  dependent  on  the 
methods  of  the  courts,  he  certainly  would 
have  sent  to  Maryland  and  procured  wit- 


8o 

nesses  to  prove  the  alibi.  But  he  did  no 
such  thing,  paying  no  attention  whatever 
to  the  affair  at  all,  except  to  repair  to 
Trenton,  at  which  place  the  court  sat,  on 
the  day  for  the  trial,  trusting  in  the  Lord 
for  acquittal.  Some  of  his  legal  friends 
approached  him,  and  finding  that  he  had 
procured  no  witnesses,  begged  him  to  ask 
for  a  postponement,  feeling  confident  that 
he  would  be  convicted.  He  would  not 
listen  to  their  advice,  however,  but  started 
for  the  court-house  at  the  appointed  hour, 
conscious  of  his  own  innocence,  and  con- 
fident that  the  great  God  of  that  glorious 
heaven  whose  wonders  he  had  seen  would 
in  some  way  take  care  of  him.  As  he 
passed  along  the  street,  a  man  and  his  wife 
accosted  him,  asking  if  his  name  was  not 
Tennent.  On  his  replying  yes,  and  in- 
quiring if  they  had  any  business  with  him, 
they  answered  that  they  were  from  Mary- 
land, where  he  had  been  preaching,  and 
that  they  had  both  been  warned  in  a 
dream,  thrice  repeated,  that  he  was  in 
Trenton  needing  their  assistance;  and  that 
in  obedience  to  these  dreams  they  had  im- 
mediately come  to  his  aid.  He  took  them 
along  to  the  court-house,  where  they  also 
found   one  of   the   tools  of  the   scheming 


8i 

persecutors  so  troubled  in  conscience  at 
the  part  he  was  playing  in  the  wicked  plot 
that  he  made  full  confession.  By  the  testi- 
mony of  these  three  persons  Mr.  Tennent 
was  of  course  triumphantly  acquitted  ac- 
cording to  his  trust  in  God. 

Other  remarkable  incidents  might  be 
cited.  But  we  must  leave  these  personal 
narrations  to  pursue  the  course  of  the  gen- 
eral work  of  God  at  this  period. 

It  can  be  seen  at  a  glance  that  the  pres- 
ence X)f  Log  College,  sending  forth  a  min- 
istry of  such  spirit  and  power,  could  not 
fail  to  make  a  marked  impression  amid  a 
church  composed  in  a  large  degree  of  form- 
alists, who  had  no  sympathy  with  so  ear- 
nest an  evangelicity.  And  it  was  most 
natural  that  a  kind  of  hostility  should 
spring  up  against  these  earnest  men,  as 
against  irregular  enthusiasts.  Nor  could 
these  zealous  souls,  on  their  part,  eas- 
ily brook  the  lifeless  sort  of  religion  that 
prevailed  in  too  many  of  the  churches, 
and  they  were  not  slow,  and  perhaps  not 
very  discreet  in  their  condemnation  of  cold 
formalism. 

By  degrees,  therefore,  the  Presbyterian 

church   became   divided    into   two   parties 

known  as  the  ''Old  Side''  and  ''New  Side,'' 
F 


82 

and  at  each  meeting  of  the  synod  some 
measure  would  very  likely  be  passed  that 
in  some  way  bore  upon  the  point  of  differ- 
ence between  them.  Thus  matters  went 
on  from  year  to  year  till,  in  1738,  the 
synod  having,  of  course,  a  majority  of  Old- 
Side  men,  passed  a  decree  that  no  pres- 
bytery should  license  any  candidate,  not  a 
graduate  of  a  regular  European  or  New 
England  college,  until  he  had  first  passed 
an  examination  before  the  synod  as  to 
his  literary  qualifications.  This  was  aimed 
against  Log  College  men,  who,  though  well 
informed  in  classical  and  theological  stud- 
ies, were  doubtless  quite  deficient  in  the 
arts  and  sciences,  and  might  fail  in  these 
departments  before  a  critical  and  really 
hostile  synod. 

Gilbert  Tennent  had  now  been  pastor 
some  ten  years  at  New  Brunswick,  and 
was  a  man  of  considerable  power ;  William 
was  at  Freehold,  also  a  strong  man  ;  and 
a  goodly  number  of  the  Log  College  men 
were  close  about  them,  making  up,  for  the 
most  part,  the  presbytery  of  New  Bruns- 
wick. These  zealous  and  stanch  souls 
believed  that  fidelity  to  gospel  truth  de- 
manded resistance  to  ecclesiastical  error. 
Consequently,  in  the  course  of  a  year  they 


83 

showed  their  strength  and  determination 
by  licensing  a  Log  College  man,  without 
requiring  him  to  pass  an  examination  be- 
fore the  synod. 

Another  act  which  the  synod  had  passed 
was  that  no  minister  should  preach  within 
the  bounds  of  a  brother  minister's  parish 
without  first  obtaining  his  consent.  This 
was  to  prevent  these  earnest  revival  men 
from  itinerating  through  the  country  and 
preaching  wherever  they  could  find  a  will- 
ing congregation.  This  decree  also  the 
New-Side  men  disregarded,  and  continued 
to  go  anywhere  and  everywhere  that  the 
way  seemed  to  open,  preaching  the  gospel 
with  great  power  and  success. 

Meanwhile,  the  memorable  year  of  1740 
was  close  at  hand,  and  the  revival  power 
was  increasing  everywhere.  Whitefield 
came  up  from  Georgia  through  these  col- 
onies, and,  of  course,  sought  out  such  kin- 
dred spirits  as  were  the  Tennents.  In  Gil- 
bert he  found  a  man  not  only  after  his  own 
heart,  but  with  considerable  of  his  own 
power.  He  took  him  for  a  traveling  com- 
panion as  far  as  New  York,  and  there,  as 
an  auditor  himself,  sat  listening  with  rapt 
interest  to  this  hitherto  comparatively  ob- 
scure   preacher.      And    the   testimony   of 


J. 

Whitefield  was,  that  hi  never  heard  such 
a  searching  sermon.  **  He  is,"  said  he, 
**  a  son  of  thunder,  and  fears  not  the  face 
of  man." 

After  the  great  itinerant  had  gone  on  to 
Boston  and  lighted  the  fires  there  and 
throughout  New  England,  as  he  returned 
through  New  Jersey  he  advised  Gilbert 
Tennent  to  make  the  tour  of  New  England 
after  him  and  continue  the  work  which  he 
had  begun.  Naturally,  being  a  modest  and 
timid  man,  he  would  have  shrunk  from  so 
great  an  undertaking,  which  was  to  go 
among  entire  strangers  outside  the  bounds 
of  his  own  denomination,  and  that  too  in 
the  footsteps  of  so  brilliant  a  preacher  as 
Whitefield,  and  to  so  cultured  a  center  as 
Boston.  Well  might  a  Log  College  man 
hesitate,  according  to  earthly  standards,  to 
undertake  such  a  work.  But  he,  with  true 
apostolic  spirit,  conferred  not  with  flesh 
and  blood ;  but,  believing  himself  to  be 
called  by  God,  went,  and  preached  with 
magnificent  success  for  three  months  in 
Boston,  and  was  instrumental  in  the  con- 
version of  a  great  multitude  of  souls.  As 
he  retraced  his  steps  through  Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut,  and  New  York,  he  left 
a  fire  behind  him  in  almost  every  village. 


85 

A  curious  fact  of  his  preaching  was  that  in 
many  places  his  sermons  did  not  seem  to 
produce  any  immediate  marked  result  in 
the  way  of  sudden  awakenings  or  conver- 
sions, which  were  then  so  common.  But 
in  a  few  days  after  he  was  gone,  those 
who  had  listened  to  him  would  be  struck 
under  conviction,  and  a  blessed  work  would 
be  the  result.  When  in  the  vicinity  of  New 
Haven,  so  great  was  his  fame  that  some  of 
the  students  of  Yale  walked  fourteen  miles 
to  hear  him. 

This  recognition  by  Whitefield  and  this 
successful  preaching  tour  abroad  gave  Ten- 
nent  confidence  and  independence.  He 
had,  moreover,  gotten  more  completely  into 
the  length  and  breadth  and  depth  of  the 
general  revival  work,  so  that  when  he  ar- 
rived home  he  took  a  bolder  stand  than 
ever  before  against  its  opposers.  He  felt 
himself  called  of  God  to  rouse  the  slumber- 
ing and  dead  orthodoxy  of  the  Presbyterian 
church,  and  he  soon  preached  a  terribly 
scathing  sermon  against  the  Old-Side  party, 
which  was  published  and  widely  circulated. 
It  was  commonly  known  as  the  ^*  Notting- 
ham sermon/'  being  delivered  at  a  "viHage 
of  that  name.  And  a  keen-edged  blade  it 
was.     He  was  particularly  able  in  this  line, 


7 


86 

the  denunciatory  seeming  to  be  his  forte. 
He  was  of  the  true  Elijah  stamp,  so  much 
so  that  he  seems  to  have  imitated  him  in 
his  personal  appearance,  having  worn  on 
his  journeys  a  leathern  girdle  about  his  loins 
and  allowed  his  hair  to  fall  down  uncut 
upon  his  shoulders. 

The  Nottingham  sermon  brought  matters 
to  a  crisis,  so  that  at  the  next  meeting  of 
the  Synod  the  Tennents  and  their  sympa- 
thizers, in  fact,  the  Presbytery  of  New 
Brunswick,  were  excluded  from  the  body. 
This  Presbytery,  however,  nothing  daunted, 
went  on  its  way  rejoicing,  and,  finding  sym 
pathizers  in  the  vicinity  of  New  York,  formed 
with  it  the  Synod  of  New  York,  into  which 
was  gathered  all  the  revival  party,  while  the 
anti-revival  party  still  ruled  the  Synod  of 
Philadelphia.  And  thus  the  great  enemy  of 
the  church  succeeded  in  arraying  the  first 
two  synods  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in 
America  against  each  other. 

Yet  in  spite  of  these  contentions  among 
the  leaders,  the  spiritual  work  among  the 
people  rolled  on  mightily  with  all  those 
who  did  not  fight  against  it,  of  whom,  how- 
ever, there  were  not  a  few.  But  in  the 
course  of  time,  which  is  a  great  adjudicator 
of  all  strifes,  it  became   evident  that  this 


87 

warfare  was  singularly  like  that  between 
the  house  of  Saul  and  the  house  of  David. 
The  new  party  of  youthful  spirit  and  inspi- 
ration waxed  stronger  and  stronger,  while 
the  old  party  of  dignity  and  legitimacy 
waxed  weaker  and  weaker.  Moreover,  the 
two  parties  began  to  understand  each  other 
better  and  to  be  more  conscious  of  their 
own  errors  and  indiscretions,  so  that  after 
seventeen  years  of  separation  the  two 
synods  were  reunited  under  the  name  of 
the  Synod  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia. 

And  no  one  labored  more  for  this  reunion 
than  Gilbert  Tennent  himself.  Soon  after 
the  separation  he  was  called  to  a  congrega- 
tion in  Philadelphia  that  had  been  gathered 
under  the  preaching  of  Whitefield.  During 
a  pastorate  here  of  nearly  a  score  of  years 
he  of  course  came  into  close  contact  with 
many  of  the  better  sort  of  the  "  Old-Side  " 
party  and  learned  somewhat  of  them.  In 
fact,  he  became  quite  different  himself  in 
his  style  of  preaching,  laying  aside  his 
furious  fire  and  becoming  more  argumenta- 
tive and  intellectual.  Indeed,  one  of  his 
old  admirers  declared  that  he  never  was 
worth  anything  after  he  went  to  Philadel- 
phia, for  he  then  took  to  writing  his  ser- 
mons and  dropped  out  of  his  impassioned 


88 

appeals  extemporaneously  delivered.  But 
Presbyterians  cannot  long  be  enthusiasts 
or  extreme  partisans  ;  they  must  ever  come 
back  to  the  mean  of  moderation. 

But  the  thing  of  special  note  and  prac- 
tical instruction  is  that  the  **  New-Side  "  or 
revival  party,  once  so  despised  and  derided, 
became  the  leading,  active,  progressive  ele- 
ment in  the  reunited  church.  Log  Col- 
lege was  the  germ  from  which  have  grown 
the  renowned  and  godly  institutions  at 
Princeton.  The  very  site  of  that  insignifi- 
cant hut  is  now  sacred  to  the  heart  of  the 
great  Presbyterian  body.  After  the  cabin 
had  been  torn  down  and  the  logs  of  which 
it  was  composed  scattered,  a  fragment  of 
one  of  them  was  found  and  rescued  from 
oblivion,  from  which  a  cane  was  made  and 
presented  to  the  venerable  Doctor  Miller, 
of  Princeton,  as  a  precious  relic  of  so  sacred 
a  shrine.  And  the  men  who  were  once 
condemned  and  rejected  as  irregular  and 
pestilent  enthusiasts  whose  mouths  ought 
to  be  stopped  are  now  regarded  as  the  true 
heroes  of  the  church,  whose  names  are 
held  in  the  highest  veneration. 

In  fact,  the  same  thing  that  we  saw  in 
the  case  of  Wesley  and  of  Edwards  we  see 
here  in  the  case  of  the  Tennents.     Yea, 


J9_ 

we  have  seen  the  same  thing  so  many 
times  in  all  ages  that  it  is  high  time  that 
the  lesson  was  learned.  How  many  times, 
when  martyr  fires  have  been  furiously 
lighted,  must 

The  hooting  mob  of  yesterday  in  silent  awe  return, 
And  gather  up  the  ashes  into  memory's  golden  urn, 

before  we  shall  learn  that  the  men  who 
have  the  spirit  of  Christ  are  the  men  who 
are  owned  of  Christ  ? 

But  let  us  not  leave  this  subject  without 
reminding  ourselves  afrfesh  of  the  fact  that 
in  all  such  cases  the  power  is  of  God  and 
not  of  man.  It  was  not  the  natural  sagacity 
and  foresight  of  these  men  that  wrought 
the  glorious  work  of  establishing  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  of  America  as  a  true,  spir- 
itual body,  instead  of  a  false  and  dead 
establishment.  It  was  God  that  made  the 
senior  Tennent  equal  to  the  task  of  fur- 
nishing a  spiritual  ministry  for  the  young 
church.  The  overruling  hand  is  so  clear 
in  it  all  !  Who  can  look  at  the  lives  of 
Wesley,  Edwards,  and  Tennent,  all  born 
in  the  same  year,  possessed  of  the  same 
spirit,  and  producing  for  three  great  de- 
nominations the  same  results,  though  in 
widely  different  spheres,  and  knowing  for  a 


90 

long  time  nothing  of  each  other's  work,  who, 
I  say,  can  review  these  facts  and  not  be  con- 
vinced that  the  power  was  of  God  and  not  of 
man  ?  Wesley  in  his  struggles  at  Oxford, 
Edwards  in  his  arguments  at  Northampton, 
and  Tennent  in  the  seclusion  of  Log  College, 
are  all  moved  by  one  and  the  same  spirit  for 
one  and  the  same  purpose. 


(3eor0e  TKUbftcfielD,  tbe  Cosmopolitan 
Bvangelist 

HUS  far  in  these  lectures  I  have 
looked  at  the  work  in  the  several 
fields  and  denominations,  taking 
especial  note  of  the  leaders  in  each  depart- 
ment. But  I  have  carefully  endeavored 
not  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  whole 
was  one  great  work  of  God,  not  arising 
from  any  one  agency  nor  confined  to  any 
one  people  or  dependent  on  any  one  leader. 
The  holy  fire  broke  out  in  many  different 
places,  and,  spreading  in  all  directions, 
enkindled  the  whole  English-speaking  em- 
pire. But  as  every  great  movement  has 
its  representative  character,  the  Great 
Awakening  had  its  pre-eminent  preacher, 


9^ 

George  Whitefield — than  whom,  I  believe, 
a  greater  of  his  kind  is  not  to  be  found  in 
the  history  of  the  whole  church.  He  is 
emphatically  the  representative  man  of  the 
great  revival  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
No  one  country  or  denomination  can  claim 
him.  He  was  born  in  England,  but  died  in 
America.  He  was  baptized  in  an  Episcopal 
church,  but  was  buried  in  a  Presbyterian 
meeting-house.  He  is  commonly  reckoned 
a  Methodist,  yet  never  technically  belonged 
to  that  denomination.  He  received  Epis-  j 
copal  ordination,  yet  sometimes  broke  bread 
for  the  Congregationalists.  He  was  an 
exceptional  character  who  soared  above  all  . 
party  lines  or  ecclesiastical  boundaries,  f 
His  citizenship  was  in  heaven,  and  he 
seemed  to  fly  over  the  earth  preaching  the 
everlasting  gospel  to  every  creature,  not 
allowing  himself  to  be  holden  to  any  place 
or  party. 

Of  course  we  have  not  exact  accounts 
and  statistics  of  the  labors  of  the  apostles, 
but  the  probability  is  that  no  man  ever 
traveled  so  far  or  preached  so  many  times 
to  so  many  people  within  the  same  period 
of  years  as  did  Whitefield.  His  parish  em- 
braced England,  Ireland,  Scotland,  Wales, 
West  Indies,  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Ver- 


92 

mont,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Con- 
necticut, New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsyl- 
vania, Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North 
Carolina,  South  Carolina,  and  Georgia. 
And  over  this  wide  domain  he  swept  like  a 
flying  angel  time  after  time  for  thirty-four 
years,  crossing  the  Atlantic  Ocean  thirteen 
times  and  preaching  over  eighteen  thousand 
sermons  to  audiences  varying  from  one  hun- 
dred to  thirty  thousand  people,  and  all  this 
before  the  days  of  railroads  and  steamships. 
But  these  dry  facts  do  not  fully  let  us 
into  the  unearthly,  majestic,  and  sublime 
heart  of  the  man.  Few,  I  fear,  understand 
him.  The  world  has  not  given  him  a  niche 
as  a  hero.  He  is  so  far  above  the  range  of 
the  experience  of  ordinary  men  !  He  had 
so  little  permanent  connection  with  earthly 
affairs.  He  wrote  no  theology,  he  founded 
no  church,  he  left  no  children,  he  reared 
no  monument.  He  did  none  of  those  things 
by  which  men  are  commonly  remembered 
and  appreciated  in  the  world.  His  whole 
interest/  was  in  heaven  and  in  eternity. 
*^  Astrd  petamus  "  was  the  motto  on  his 
seal,'"'"  Let  us  seek  the  stars."  His  only 
care  was  to  save  men  for  the  world  that  is 
to  come.  He  preached  as  Apelles  painted, 
for  eternity.     He  is  not  to  be  measured  as 


93 

are  others.  Nor  are  others  to  be  measured 
as  is  he.  He  is  an  exceptional  character, 
an  exhibition  of  what  the  Spirit  of  God  can 
do  with  poor,  weak  humanity,  a  personal 
exponent  of  that  mighty  wave  of  divine 
power  that  visited  the  world  at  that  time. 
He  comes  nearer  to  John's  vision  of  the 
flying  angel  having  the  everlasting  gospel 
to  preach  to  every  creature  than  any  other 
man.  The  adjective  "  seraphic  "  has  been 
frequently  applied  to  him,  and  not  without 
reason,  yet  in  using  it  we  must  be  careful 
not  to  picture  to  ourselves  a  dainty  saintli- 
ness,  for  he  was  rather  a  warrior  angel, 
charging  boldly  upon  the  hosts  of  sin,  often 
faint,  bleeding,  panting,  and  covered  with 
the  dust  and  gore  of  the  battle. 

But  I  must  not  deal  too  much  in  gen- 
eralities. We  need  to  consider  three  things 
in  order  to  understand  the  wonderful  story 
of  Whitefield's  preaching  :  i.  His  constitu- 
tional fitness  for  a  preacher.  2.  His  re- 
ligious experience  and  call  to  the  ministry. 
3.  The  divine  power  that  was  abroad  in 
the  world  at  the  time. 

I.  He  was  an  orator  horn.  He  had,  in  the 
first  placey  that  sensitive,  plastic,  imaginative, 
nervous  constitution  that  took  in  the  impres- 
sion of  all  things  with  intense  reality.     His 


94 

soul  was  like  the  photographer's  plate  that 
needs  but  the  light  to  receive  the  impression 
of  all  things  around  ;  or  like  the  chords  of 
the  i^olian  harp  that  want  but  the  breath 
of  the  winds  to  awaken  the  sweetest  music. 
I  His  heart  was  alive  to  impressions  from  na- 
ture, from  men,  from  spirits,  from  angels, 
and  from  God.  The  ear  of  his  soul  was 
open  to  earth,  to  heaven,  and  to  hell,  to 
time,  and  to  eternity.  He  was,  therefore,  a 
living  reservoir  of  truths,  facts,  emotions, 
illustrations,  all  burning  hot  within  him. 
j  And  his  power  of  expression  wdiS  as  great 
as  his  susceptibility  to  impression.  His  was 
one  of  the  grandest  voices  that  the  world 
has  ever  listened  to,  so  powerful  and  yet 
capable  of  such  exquisite  modulation.  It 
could  be  heard  a  mile  in  the  open  air  when 
he  thundered  the  terrors  of  Sinai,  or  could 
be  reduced  to  a  thrilling  whisper  as  when  he 
said,  **  Hark!  Hark!"  bidding  his  hearers 
listen  for  the  groans  of  the  prostrate  Sav- 
iour in  the  dark  shadows  of  Gethsemane. 
The  expression  of  his  face  too,  changing 
at  will  from  that  of  a  radiant  angel  to  that 
of  an  angry  demon  !  The  glare  of  his  eye, 
the  wave  of  his  hand,  the  action  of  his 
whole  body,  and  his  copious,  yet  honest 
tears,  all  conspired  to  make  him  the  per- 


95 

feet  orator.  He  was,  moreover,  an  invalid 
much  of  the  time,  and  thus  keyed  up  to 
that  extreme  nervous  tension  that  is  some- 
times so  dreadfully  helpful  to  the  public 
speaker.  For  many  years  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  vomit  quantities  of  blood  after 
preaching,  which  seemed  to  come  as  a  re- 
fief  to  his  surcharged  system,  so  completely 
and  literally  was  his  life  given  to  his  work. 
He  could  throw  himself  en  rapport  with 
almost  any  occasion,  particularly  with 
the  grand,  the  terrible,  the  thrilling,  and 
the  sublime.  A  thunderstorm  was  his  de- 
light. In  his  youth  he  once  took  to  the 
fields  in  the  midst  of  one,  in  the  darkness 
of  the  night,  and  tried  to  improve  the  aw- 
ful scene  in  getting  some  idea  of  the  judg- 
ment day.  Some  of  his  grandest  sermons 
were  preached  in  the  midst  of  thunder- 
storms, using  the  clouds,  the  darkness,  the 
thunder,  the  lightning,  and  the  rainbow  for 
the  illustrations  of  his  subject.  To  such  a 
man  the  occasion  and  the  circumstances 
were  instruments  of  power  where  to  others 
they  would  have  proved  hindrances  and 
obstacles.  The  tumult  of  a  mob,  and  the 
angry  roar  of  an  opposing  multitude  drew 
him  out  to  his  grandest  efforts  ;  it  would 
seem   that   sometimes   he   almost   courted 


96 

them.  And  yet,  there  was  nothing  in  him 
that  approached  at  all  to  coarseness  or  rude- 
ness, for  nothing  delighted  him  more  than 
the  attendance  of  the  cultured.  He  was 
especially  pleasing  and  successful  as  an 
orator  in  Lady  Huntingdon's  chapel,  where 
were  gathered  the  select  few,  such  as  Ches- 
terfield and  Bolingbroke  and  Garrick  and 
Hume,  as  he  was  at  Moorfield,  where  he 
contended  like  a  charging  war  horse,  for  a 
whole  day,  with  the  rude,  coarse,  devilish 
mob  of  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  vaga- 
bonds. He  had  been  intimate  with  vari- 
ous classes  of  people,  and  was  at  home 
in  the  dialect  and  scenes  of  each.  Once 
preaching  to  the  sailors  in  New  York,  he  so 
graphically  described  a  storm  at  sea  carry- 
ing away  the  masts  and  throwing  the  ship 
on  her  beam  ends,  that  when  he  exclaimed, 
"  What  next  ?  "  his  sailor  audience  were 
so  carried  along  that  they  rose  in  their 
seats  and  shouted  right  out  in  church, 
**Take  to  the  life-boat!"  "Yes,"  said 
Whitefield,  "  to  the  life-boat,  Jesus  Christ, 
the  only  refuge  amid  the  storm  of  the  wrath 
of  Almighty  God."  Numerous  instances  of 
this  sort  are  given  where  he  so  carried  his 
audience  with  him  that  they  were  trans- 
ported to  the  scene  he  was  describing. 


97 

2.  But  I  pass  to  the  second  point :  His 
religions  experience  and  call  to  the  ministry. 
Nothing  but  that  heartfelt  experience  of 
eternal  realities  could  ever  have  so  called 
out  those  marvelous  powers  of  his  in  the 
cause  of  religion.  Had  he  not  been  led  into 
the  ministry,  he  probably  would  have  been 
an  actor.  Unlike  Wesley  and  Edwards  and 
Tennent,  Whitefield  was  not  born  and  nur- 
tured in  the  ways  of  piety.  He  was  the 
son  of  a  tavern-keeper,  who,  dying  when 
he  was  a  boy,  left  him  to  the  drudgery  of 
bartending  and  floor-scrubbing.  But  he 
was  ambitious  of  better  things,  and  made 
an  attempt  for  a  liberal  education  by  going 
to  Oxford  and  supporting  himself  as  a  serv- 
itor, that  is,  waiting  on  the  tables  of  the 
richer  students,  a  business  for  which  his 
hotel  life  had  particularly  qualified  him. 
His  heart,  by  degrees,  had  been  drawn  by 
the  Holy  Spirit  toward  a  godly  life,  and 
falling  in  with  the  Wesleys  and  others  of 
the  **  Holy  Club,"  he  commenced  the 
search  for  God  in  dead  earnest.  The  Wes- 
leys had  at  this  time  gotten  no  further 
than  their  ascetic  and  legal  strivings,  and 
into  this  they  led  Whitefield.  It  is  touch- 
ing and  pitiful  to  see  the  awful,  yet  fruit- 
less earnestness  of  his  struggles. 
G 


98 

His  nature  was  so  much  more  ardent 
than  that  of  the  Wesleys,  that  he  quickly 
went  far  beyond  them,  and  brought  himself 
into  such  straits  that  they  hardly  knew  how 
to  advise  him  any  further.  He  fasted  and 
prayed  and  wept  and  watched  with  such 
incessant  vehemence  that  he  brought  him- 
self near  to  death.  He  got  scarcely  more 
than  three  hours  sleep  in  a  night.  For  diet 
he  allowed  himself  little  more  than  dry 
crusts  of  bread  and  sage  tea,  and  purposely 
wore  old  and  dirty  clothes,  in  order  to  mor- 
tify his  pride.  To  imitate  Jesus  in  the 
desert,  he  would  go  out  into  the  college 
yard  at  night,  and  in  the  pelting  storm  lie 
for  hours  on  the  cold  and  wet  ground,  pray- 
ing most  piteously.  The  result  was,  as 
might  have  been  expected  ;  first,  his  mind 
failed  him  so  that  he  could  no  longer  pre- 
pare his  lessons,  causing  him  to  burst  into 
tears  before  his  tutors  at  recitation,  and 
then  his  health  broke  down  and  he  lay  help- 
less with  fever  for  some  seven  weeks.  In 
the  course  of  this  sickness  he  saw  how  use- 
less it  was  to  attempt  to  work  out  salvation 
by  these  ascetic  practices,  and  began  in  a 
blind  way  to  feel  his  utter  helplessness  to 
do  anything  of  himself  to  merit  salvation. 
Thus    slowly   was    he    taught    the    truth 


99 

through  bitter  experience.  But  the  time  of 
his  deliverance  was  at  hand. 

One  day  feeling  extremely  thirsty,  and 
thinking  of  Christ  in  like  suffering  on  the 
cross,  he  was  led  to  adopt  his  language,  and 
throwing  himself  on  his  bed,  cried  out  in  an 
agony  of  soul,  "I  thirst,  I  thirst,''  having, 
however,  quite  as  much  reference  to  his 
spiritual  as  to  his  literal  want.  Then  and 
there  he  was  enabled  to  trust.  His  burden 
rolled  off,  and  he  began  to  give  praise  to 
God.  Soon  after  this  clear  reception  of 
Christ,  being  filled  from  this  time  forth 
with  an  excess  of  joy,  he  went  home  to 
Gloucester,  and  taking  the  Scriptures, 
rather  than  his  ascetic  authors,  for  his  read- 
ing, drank  in  strong  draughts  of  the  living 
water  to  his  thirsty  soul. 

Here  renovated  in  body,  mind,  and  spirit, 
he  began  to  yearn  toward  the  ministry  of 
reconciliation,  longing  to  tell  to  others  the 
great  joy  that  he  himself  had  found.  Yet 
he  was  extremely  modest  and  conscientious, 
thinking  himself  unfit  for  the  sacred  office. 
But  good  Bishop  Benson  and  other  friends, 
discerning  his  talent  and  spirit,  urged  him 
forward  rather  than  held  him  back,  till  at 
last  he  consented  to  be  ordained,  not,  how- 
ever, till  he  had  compared  the  Thirty-nine 


100 

Articles  of  the  Church  of  England  with  the 
Scriptures,  and  carefully  examined  himself 
according  to  the  qualifications  laid  down 
in  the  Epistles  to  Timothy  and  Titus.  Yet 
he  says  that  when  he  went  up  to  the  altar 
for  ordination,  he  could  think  of  nothing 
but  Samuel  standing  as  a  little  child  before 
the  Lord  with  a  linen  ephod,  and  he  adds, 
**When  the  bishop  laid  his  hands  on  my 
head,  my  heart  was  melted  down,  and  I 
offered  up  my  whole  spirit,  soul,  and  body, 
to  the  service  of  God's  sanctuary  "  ;  but 
in  a  letter  to  a  friend  at  this  time,  he  says  : 
"  I  have  thrown  myself  blindfold,  and  I 
trust  without  reserve,  into  God  Almighty's 
hands  ;  only  I  would  have  you  observe  that 
until  you  hear  of  me  dying  for  or  in  my 
work,  you  will  not  be  apprised  of  all  the 
preferment  that  I  expect."  A  week  after, 
when  he  had  preached  his  first  sermon,  he 
commenced  another  letter,  saying  in  the 
fullness  of  his  unfettered  soul,  ''  Glory, 
glory,  glory  be  ascribed  to  an  almighty, 
triune  God  !  last  Sunday  I  preached  my 
first  sermon  "  ;  and  closed  the  letter  by 
saying,  "  Blessed  be  God,  I  now  find  free- 
dom in  writing.     Glorious  Jesus, 

"  Unloose  my  stammering  tongue  to  tell 
Thy  love,  immense,  unsearchable." 


lOI 

Here  you  see  the  kindlings  of  that  mighty 
flame.  Here  you  see  the  mighty  blasts 
that  fanned  it.  Some  one  went  to  Bishop 
Benson  and  said  that  Whitefield's  first  ser- 
mon had  driven  fifteen  persons  mad.  ''  I 
only  hope,"  replied  the  bishop,  **that  their 
madness  will  last  till  next  Sunday."  Here, 
then,  was  the  all-engrossing,  deeply  rooted, 
hard-earned  experience,  and  thorough,  con- 
scientious consecration  that  called  into  ac- 
tion his  wonderful  native  powers.  Re- 
ligion was  a  great  reality  to  him,  and  it  was 
the  only  reality  with  him.  His  experience 
had  burned  through  his  whole  nature,  con- 
suming all  love  of  the  world,  and  all  the 
pride  of  life,  and  leaving  only  the  one  ab- 
sorbing passion  of  leading  men  to  Christ,  of 
snatching  them  out  of  the  follies  of  the  world 
and  the  powers  of  sin,  into  the  clear  light  of 
eternal  blessedness.  Such  was  the  man,  and 
such  was  his  experience  and  motive. 

3.  And  now  as  to  the  times  in  which  he 
lived,  or  rather,  as  to  the  power  of  God  that 
was  now  abroad  working  with  him,  and  pre- 
paring the  masses  everywhere  for  his  ap- 
proach. I  cannot  exaggerate  the  importance 
of  this  point.  The  times  made  the  man  quite 
as  much  as  the  man  made  the  times.  The 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  was  moving  the  hearts 


102 

of  men  toward  religious  things — not  always 
consciously  or  visibly.  Perhaps,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  general  irreligion  of  the 
times  was  growing  turbulent  and  defiant. 
Such  is  often  the  case  when  the  heart  is 
disturbed.  The  ungodly  are  restless  and 
passionate  and  hostile,  because  a  strange 
power  that  they  understand  not  is  getting 
hold  of  them.  But  they  are  thus  rendered 
much  more  impressible.  Then  too,  the 
providences  of  God  were  co-working  with 
the  Spirit  in  such  a  manner  as  to  produce 
the  most  mighty  effects.  Almost  miracles 
were  wrought  in  the  work. 

Let  me  instance  a  case.  In  Yorkshire, 
England,  there  was  a  devoted  and  evangel- 
ical rector  by  the  name  of  Grimshaw,  who 
had  itinerated  somewhat  and  had  greatly 
stirred  up  the  people  on  the  general  subject, 
and  who,  therefore,  stood  all  ready  to  co- 
operate with  Whitefield.  Therefore,  when 
it  was  announced  that  he  and  Lady  Hun- 
tingdon had  come  into  the  region  thousands 
assembled  to  hear  the  great  preacher.  And 
now  look  upon  the  scene.  A  platform  is 
erected  in  the  fields,  for  no  church  can  hold 
the  multitudes.  Whitefield  and  Grimshaw 
take  then  their  place  upon  it.  The  great 
crowd    stretches    all    around,    waiting    in 


103 

breathless  expectancy.  A  prayer  is  offered 
— all  is  still.  Whitefield  rises  and  shouts 
out  his  text.  *'  It  is  appointed  unto  men 
once  to  die,  but  after  this  the  judgment.'* 
Then  he  pauses,  when  all  at  once  a  shriek 
is  heard  ;  away  yonder  in  the  crowd  God 
has  emphasized  the  text.  A  person  has 
been  struck  dead.  And  Grimshaw,  who 
has  left  the  stage  to  ascertain  the  cause  of 
the  commotion,  cries  out :  "  Brother  White- 
field,  you  stand  between  the  living  and  the 
dead.  The  destroying  angel  is  passing  over 
the  congregation — *  cry  aloud  and  spare 
not.'  "  In  a  few  minutes  quiet  is  restored, 
the  dead  man  has  been  carried  out,  and 
Whitefield  shouts  his  text  again.  *'  It  is 
appointed  unto  men  once  to  die,  but  after 
this  the  judgment."  Another  shriek,  and 
another  has  fallen  dead.  And  he  too  is 
carried  out,  and  once  more  the  text  is 
announced,  a  pause  is  made — but  as  no 
more  fall  the  sermon  proceeds.  And  how 
could  such  a  man  as  Whitefield  preach  to 
such  an  audience  in  such  circumstances, 
when  it  seemed  that  God  himself  came  near 
to  emphasize  the  text  ? 

And  in  almost  every  part  of  the  world 
where  he  traveled  he  could  find  some 
mighty   man   of    God    that   had   prepared 


104 

the  way  before  him,  some  Grimshaw  or 
Wesley  or  Edwards  or  Tennent  or  Prime 
or  Parsons  or  Blair,  for  there  were  many 
spiritual  giants  in  those  days.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  opposition  that  Satan  stirred 
up  against  him  helped  to  awaken  an  inter- 
est. He  was  preached  against  and  written 
against,  and  ridiculed  and  maligned  and 
persecuted  in  every  way.  Once  in  Ireland 
he  came  near  being  stoned  to  death  like 
Stephen,  and  once  in  England  he  was  at- 
tacked in  his  own  bed  and  barely  escaped 
with  his  life.  All  these  things  gave  him 
immense  notoriety  and  drew  immense 
throngs,  and  a  throng  would  always  arouse 
him  to  a  mighty  sermon. 

Then  too  he  attempted  such  daring  deeds. 
You  have  heard,  perhaps,  of  his  great  field- 
day  on  Moorfield,  on  the  Whitsun  holiday. 
Moorfield  was  a  vast  playground  in  the  sub- 
urbs of  London,  where  in  those  days  the 
most  abandoned  of  the  population,  those 
that  never  entered  the  churches  and  cared 
nothing  for  religion,  carried  on  their  sports. 
Whitefield  often  preached  there,  as  did 
Wesley  and  others  of  like  spirit.  But  on 
this  occasion  he  conceived  the  idea  of  hold- 
ing the  place  all  day  for  God  on  this  great 
holiday,   while   the   roughs   claimed   it   as 


their  own.  Friends  dissuaded  and  said  he 
would  never  get  away  alive.  But  he  had 
his  pulpit  erected  beforehand  and  was  on 
it  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  gathering 
the  crowd  about  him  and  preaching  until 
weary.  And  again  at  twelve,  at  noon,  and 
again  at  six  in  the  evening,  holding  a  large 
part  of  the  assemblage  with  him,  while  the 
savage  opposition  sought  to  drown  his  voice 
with  drums  and  to  knock  him  off  his  pulpit 
and  to  break  up  his  audience  by  rushing 
down  upon  it  with  columns  of  rowdies  in 
close  file.  But  he  held  his  ground  all  day, 
and  that  evening  at  his  tabernacle  a  thou- 
sand requests  for  prayer  were  handed  in 
from  those  who  had  heard  the  word  that 
day,  and  three  hundred  and  fifty  were 
added  to  his  church  as  the  result  of  that 
heroic  daring.  Never,  perhaps,  was  the 
devil  so  stormed  in  his  own  quarters.  It  is 
regarded  as  the  greatest  of  his  field-days. 
Oh,  shall  we  ever  again  have  men  that  can 
take  hold  in  such  a  way  of  such  classes  of 
society  } 

But  I  must  not  tarry  with  isolated  inci- 
dents. I  suppose  you  know  that  his  head- 
quarters in  England  was  the  tabernacle  in 
London,  the  center  of  the  Calvinistic  Meth- 
odists, and  in  America  his  orphan  home  in 


io6 

Georgia  was  the  one  spot  to  which  he  re- 
turned and  for  which  he  traveled.  The 
early  example  of  Francke  in  building  an 
orphan  home  has  been  followed  by  various 
kindred  spirits.  But  it  would  seem  that  in 
the  course  of  providence  Whitefield's  or- 
phan home  was  more  the  means  for  sending 
him  out  itinerating  than  it  was  an  end  for 
the  care  of  the  destitute.  True,  he  built 
an  immense  edifice,  and  collected  large  sums 
of  money  for  its  support,  and  for  a  while  it 
did  good  work,  but  shortly  after  his  death 
the  building  was  burned  and  the  institute 
broken  up,  so  that  not  even  this  remains  as 
a  monument  of  his  labors.  He  was  evi- 
dently designed  to  be  the  chief  itinerant  of 
the  great  revival.  Learned  men  and  ora- 
tors had  declared  Christianity  to  be  dead 
and  dying,  and  God  determined  to  show 
that  Christianity  was  still  living  and  could 
fire  the  heart  of  man  as  nothing  else  could. 
And  yet  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  he 
was  always  on  the  top  wave  ;  he  had  his 
dark  hours  and  his  dull  times,  but  he  tri- 
umphed over  them  all. 

Perhaps  I  cannot  better  close  this  very 
imperfect  sketch  of  this  most  wonderful 
man  than  by  telling  how  at  last  he  died — 
it  is  so  illustrative  of  his  whole  career.     In 


107 

September,  1769,  he  left  England  on  his 
last  trip  to  America.  He  landed  in  Geor- 
gia and  had  the  satisfaction  of  finding  his 
orphanage  in  a  most  prosperous  condition. 
He  then  started  North  on  a  preaching  tour, 
though  in  feeble  health.  He  made  his 
usual  triumphant  march  up  through  the 
colonies,  preaching  at  Philadelphia  and 
New  York  and  intermediate  stations.  Then 
he  took  a  tour  up  the  Hudson  and  westward 
in  the  State  of  New  York  as  far  as  the  coun- 
try was  then  settled,  and  seemed  trans- 
ported with  the  opening  fields  in  the  New 
World.  Yet  he  was  ripening  fast,  and  was 
in  almost  one  continual  strain  of  praise, 
saying  in  one  of  his  letters,  "Hallelujah! 
Let  chapel,  tabernacle,  heaven,  and  earth 
resound  with  hallelujahs  !  I  can  say  no 
more,  my  heart  is  too  big  to  say  more  !  " 
The  last  entry  in  his  journal  was  after  hav- 
ing preached  from  the  coffin  of  a  criminal 
under  the  gallows,  of  which  he  says : 
"Solemn!  Solemn!  Effectual  good  I 
hope  was  done — grace,  grace  !  "  Thus  he 
passed  on  northward,  preaching  every  day. 
His  last  sermon  was  delivered  at  Exeter, 
New  Hampshire,  in  the  open  air.  He  was 
quite  feeble,  and  some  one  said,  "Sir,  you 
are  more  fit  to  go  to  bed  than  to  preach." 


io8 

'*  True,  sir/'  he  replied,  recognizing  liis 
feebleness.  And  then  stepping  aside  and 
clasping  his  hands  together  and  looking  up 
he  said,  with  all  the  simplicity  and  earnest- 
ness of  a  child,  **  Lord  Jesus,  I  am  weary 
in  thy  work  but  not  0/ thy  work.  If  I  have 
not  yet  finished  my  course,  let  me  go  on 
and  speak  for  thee  once  more  in  the  fields, 
seal  thy  truth,  and  then  go  home  and  die." 
He  went,  and  nobly  did  he  rally  his  dying 
power  for  that  last  effort.  His  text  was, 
"Examine  yourselves,  whether  ye  be  in 
the  faith  ;  prove  your  own  selves."  It  was 
one  of  his  favorite  themes,  grown  out  of 
his  own  experience,  **  Faith  and  Works." 
He  was  so  near  gone  that  his  voice  re- 
peatedly flagged  and  grew  hoarse.  Then 
he  would  rouse  himself  and  soar  aloft  on 
some  flight  of  eloquence,  and  thus  for  two 
long  hours  he  threw  his  failing  strength 
into  his  loved  employ.  Conscious  that  he 
was  near  his  end  he  uttered  in  the  closing 
of  the  sermon  these  thrilling  words  : 

**  I  go  to  my  everlasting  rest.  My  sun 
has  risen,  shone,  and  is  setting — nay,  is 
about  to  rise  and  shine  forever.  I  have  not 
lived  in  vain,  and  though  I  could  live  to 
preach  Christ  a  thousand  years,  I  die  to  be 
with  him,  which  is  far  better." 


109 

When  the  sermon  was  over  he  rode  to 
Newburyport,  to  the  house  of  Mr.  Parsons, 
pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  church,  at 
which  he  was  announced  to  preach  on  the 
morrow,  which  was  the  Sabbath. 

While  he  was  at  the  tea  table  a  crowd 
gathered  around  the  door  and  in  the  hall, 
wishing  to  hear  some  words  from  him.  But 
he  was  so  utterly  exhausted  that  he  turned 
to  a  minister  present  and  said  :  *'  Brother, 
you  must  speak  to  the  people,  I  cannot  say 
a  word,"  and  taking  his  candle  he  started 
for  his  chamber.  But  as  he  passed  through 
the  hall  the  sight  of  the  eager  people  touched 
his  noble  soul,  and  he  halted  on  the  stairs 
and  began  to  exhort  them.  His  heart  was 
full,  and  he  talked  on  and  on  till  the  candle 
in  his  hand  burned  down  and  went  out,  and 
then  he  retired  to  his  bed.  In  the  middle  of 
the  night  his  asthma  came  on  very  badly. 
He  sat  up  in  bed  and  prayed  for  all  his  dear 
ones,  particularly  for  his  orphanage  in  Geor- 
gia and  his  tabernacle  in  London.  But  soon 
he  choked  for  breath,  and  flying  to  the  win- 
dow he  threw  it  up  and  said,  '*  I  am  dying, 
I  am  dying,"  and  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, just  as  the  Sabbath  sun  was  rising  on 
the  world,  his  happy  spirit  took  its  flight. 

According  to  his  own  desire  he  was  laid 


no 

to  rest  beneath  the  pulpit  of  the  Federal 
Street  Presbyterian  Church  in  Newbury- 
port,  where  his  dust  still  remains.  Funer- 
al services  were  held  all  over  Protestant 
Christendom,  and  every  true  minister  of 
Christ  could  say,  as  did  the  one  who  of- 
fered the  prayer  at  the  funeral,  *'  My 
father,  my  father,  the  chariot  of  Israel  and 
the  horsemen  thereof."  But,  as  another 
has  said,  he  took  his  mantle  with  him. 
There  has  been  no  one  like  him,  and  per- 
haps never  will  be.  Spurgeon  has  been 
called  the  modern  Whitefield.  But  Spur- 
geon is  about  as  much  like  Whitefield  as 
the  patient  ox  is  like  the  charging  war 
horse.  He  stands  alone,  **the  prince  of 
pulpit  orators,"  the  cosmopolitan  evangel- 
ist, the  concrete  exponent  of  the  Great 
Awakening  of  the  eighteenth  century. 


VI 
5ame6  Davenport,  anD  tbe  Disorders 

HUS  far,  in  these  lectures,  I  have 
surveyed  the  field  and  the  work, 
and  made  special  mention  of  the 
principal  leaders — Wesley,  Edwards,  Ten- 
nent,  and  Whitefield.      Of  them,   and  of 


Ill 

their  work,  and  of  the  movement  as  a 
whole,  I  have  generally  spoken  in  terms  of 
unqualified  approbation.  But  I  should  be 
an  unfair  historian  if  I  did  not  allude  to 
phases  of  the  movement  that  were  not  what 
they  should  have  been,  and  which  so  far  col- 
ored the  whole  work  as  to  bring  down  upon 
it,  in  many  quarters,  strong  disapprobation. 
In  fact,  I  do  not  know  but  that  in  1745  or 
1750  a  third  or  perhaps  half  the  ministers  of 
America  would  have  voted  the  great  revival 
a  curse  rather  than  a  blessing,  a  delusion  of 
the  devil  and  a  disturber  of  the  peace. 

This,  perhaps,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at, 
when  we  remember  that  so  many  of  the 
clergy  were  unspiritual  men.  But  still,  it 
must  be  confessed  that  many  who  were, 
in  the  judgment  of  charity,  sound  Chris- 
tians, were,  on  the  whole,  more  opponents 
than  friends  of  the  revival.  I  have  shown 
how  Edwards  was  dismissed  from  North- 
ampton, and  how  Tennent  and  the  Pres- 
bytery of  New  Brunswick  were  excluded 
from  the  Synod  of  Philadelphia,  and  you 
all  know  how  utterly  impossible  Wesley 
found  it  to  stay  within  the  Church  of 
England  ;  and  I  might  have  told  you  how 
the  faculties  of  Harvard  and  of  Yale  issued 
their  protests  against  Whitefield,  and  how 


112 

the  General  Association  of  Massachusetts 
placed  upon  its  records  a  condemnation 
of  the  abuses  of  the  times  without  any 
recognition  of  the  great  blessing  that  had 
fallen  upon  the  churches  within  the  same 
period.  In  fact,  for  a  little  it  seemed  that 
the  Great  Awakening  would  be  chronicled 
in  history  as  nothing  but  a  great,  unprofit- 
able frenzy.  Strong  and  sharp  was  the 
battle  of  opinion  for  a  considerable  space. 

But  now  that  the  smoke  and  the  heat  of 
the  conflict  is  past,  it  remains  for  us  of  later 
times  to  view  the  whole  with  a  dispassion- 
ate eye  and  discern  the  main  elements  of 
truth  in  the  case.  I  have  repeatedly  re- 
minded you,  in  th/ course  of  these  lectures, 
,  of  the  fact  that  Satan  uses  all  manner  of 
methods  in  the  promulgation  of  his  king- 
dom. Whatever  he  cannot  prevent,  that 
he  seeks  to  control.  When,  therefore,  he 
found  that  he  could  not  prevent  the  Great 
Awakening,  he  sought  to  push  it  into  the 
wildest  fanaticism  and  folly.  Just  the  ex- 
act point,  however,  where  he,  in  such  cases, 
steps  in  and  gains  control,  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult to  determine.  The  Scripture  tells  us 
that  Satan  himself  is  transformed  into  an 
angel  of  light.  In  the  wonder  and  amaze- 
ment of  the  vision  it  is  not  easy  to  discern 


113 

the  exact  point  where  the  counterfeit  takes 
the  place  of  the  real.  None  but  the  most 
practiced  eye  can,  at  first  sight,  discern 
counterfeit  money  ;  and  the  case  is  not 
much  different  with  religion.  So,  doubt- 
less, much  that  is  considered  genuine  is 
really  counterfeit,  and  much  that  is  consid- 
ered counterfeit  is  really  genuine.  Time, 
however,  sets  all  in  clearest  light. 

Man  is  a  complex  creature.  He  has  a 
body,  a  mind,  and  a  spirit,  and  when  each 
of  these  is  fallen  and  diseased,  it  is  no  easy 
thing  to  keep  them  in  proper  equilibrium. 
If  the  first,  the  body,  is  unduly  stimulated, 
the  man  becomes  sensual ;  if  the  second, 
he  becomes  rationalistic  ;  if  the  third,  he 
becomes  fanatical.  Satan  always  watches 
the  predisposition  of  the  individual,  or  the 
drift  of  the  times,  to  push  men  into  one  or 
the  other  of  these  errors.  The  Great  Awak- 
ening— the  great  stimulating  of  the  spirit- 
ual part  of  humanity — was  Satan's  grand 
opportunity  to  make  fanatics.  He  tried  the 
leaders,  but  with  indifferent  success.  Wes- 
ley's good  sense  gave  the  enemy  only  a 
temporary  and  trifling  advantage ;  Ed- 
wards' strong  intellectuality  saved  him ; 
Tennent  discovered  his  own  undue  vehe- 
mence in  time  to  prevent  its  proceeding  to 
H 


114 

disastrous  length  ;  Whitefield,  though  some- 
times betrayed  into  injudicious  remarks, 
was  wonderfully  controlled,  as  it  would 
seem,  by  divine  watchcare. 

But  with  some  of  the  lesser  lights  the 
enemy  was  more  successful  ;  and  it  is  of 
one  of  these,  James  Davenport,  that  I  am 
to  speak  somewhat  briefly  in  this  lecture 
as  illustrating  the  disorders  of  the  times. 
And  I,  personally,  have  had  the  more  inter- 
est in  the  matter  because  some  of  his  wild- 
est extravagances  were  enacted  in  the  place 
of  my  boyhood,  and  one  of  the  most  serious 
of  the  separations  which  he  caused  was  from 
the  stanch  old  church  which  I  used  to  attend 
at  New  London,  Connecticut. 

James  Davenport  was  a  descendant  of 
the  famous  John  Davenport,  the  first  min- 
ister of  New  Haven,  and  was,  therefore, 
intimately  connected  with  some  of  the  first 
families  of  that  city.  He  was  graduated  at 
Yale  in  1732,  and  settled  at  Southhold, 
Long  Island.  He  had,  therefore,  been  some 
seven  or  eight  years  a  pastor  when  the  re- 
vival wave  came  to  its  height.  He  entered 
largely  and  successfully  into  it  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  was  esteemed  a  man  of 
great  sanctity  and  effectiveness.  Whitefield 
regarded  him  as  one  of  the  most  zealous  and 


11$ 

godly  men  that  he  met  with  in  his  travels, 
and  spoke  of  him  in  the  highest  terms  in 
his  journal.  He  was  also  a  great  friend  of 
Tennent,  whom  he  was  accustomed  to  visit 
in  New  Jersey,  and  by  others  he  was  es- 
teemed almost  an  apostle. 

He  was,  however,  an  unbalanced  man, 
and  was  not  altogether  sound  in  health, 
which  seems  to  have  had  an  influence 
on  his  mind.  About  1740  he  received  the 
impression  that  he  was  to  be  the  Lord's 
prophet,  with  extraordinary  gifts  and  pow- 
ers. He  called  some  of  his  people  together 
at  his  own  house  and  exhorted  them  in  an 
excited  strain  for  twenty-four  hours  to- 
gether. Having,  as  he  thought,  the  power 
of  discerning  spirits,  he  made  distinctions 
as  to  who  was  converted  and  who  was  not, 
and  forbade  the  latter  to  come  to  the  com- 
munion. He  attempted  furthermore  to 
work  a  miracle  of  healing  on  a  dumb, 
insane  woman,  and  claimed  that  he  suc- 
ceeded, as  the  patient  died  on  the  day  on 
which  he  had  predicted  that  she  would  re- 
cover. This  release  from  pain  he  regarded 
as  an  answer  to  his  prayer. 

His  people,  as  a  whole,  could  not  endure 
him,  but  one  of  his  members  especially  be- 
lieved in  him,  and  proposed  that  they  two 


ii6 

should  go  abroad  among  the  churches  with 
their  extraordinary  powers.  Just  then  Dav- 
enport read  in  his  Bible  of  Jonathan  and 
his  armor-bearer  going  to  smite  the  garri- 
son of  the  Philistines,  and  he  applied  the 
passage  to  himself  and  his  devoted  assist- 
ant. But  Jonathan  did  not  go  against  the 
Philistines  till  they  challenged  him  to  come, 
and  so  Davenport  could  not  go  to  any  out- 
side places  till  some  one  challenged  or  in- 
vited him  to  come.  Soon,  however,  the 
people  at  East  Hampton,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  island,  said  they  would  like  to  have 
Mr.  Davenport  visit  them.  This  was,  to 
his  mind,  the  "challenge*'  he  had  been 
waiting  for,  and  so  he  and  his  '*  armor- 
bearer  "  waded  knee  deep  in  snow  over  to 
East  Hampton,  just  as,  according  to  their 
vivid  imagination,  Jonathan  and  his  ar- 
mor-bearer climbed  on  their  hands  and 
knees  up  to  the  garrison  of  the  Philistines. 
Here  at  East  Hampton  it  would  seem  that 
Davenport  did  a  good  work,  having  many 
conversions,  which  confirmed  him  in  the 
idea  of  his  mission. 

Accordingly,  the  next  year  he  set  out  on 
an  extensive  tour  through  Connecticut. 
He  landed  at  Stonington,  and  so  great  was 
his  power  as  a  preacher  that  a  hundred 


117 

persons  were  struck  under  conviction  by 
the  first  sermon,  and  many  conversions 
occurred  which  the  lapse  of  years  proved 
to  be  true  and  genuine.  From  Stonington 
he  traveled  leisurely  westward,  visiting  all 
the  churches  and  producing  great  excite- 
ment. His  method  was,  as  he  entered  a 
town,  to  first  visit  the  minister  and  *' dis- 
cern "  whether  he  was  converted  or  not — 
that  is,  whether  he  would  yield  to  him  and 
indorse  him  in  all  his  ways  and  give  him 
free  use  of  his  church.  If  he  "  discerned  " 
him  unconverted,  and  if  the  minister  would 
not  yield  to  him  as  a  prophet  of  the  Lord, 
he  would  pour  forth  the  most  violent  de- 
nunciation against  him  as  a  blind  guide,  as 
a  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing,  and  then  pray 
for,  or  rather  against  the  "unworthy  hire- 
ling,'' and  call  upon  what  people  he  could 
influence  to  separate  from  the  ungodly 
church  and  to  follow  him  **  without  the 
camp,  bearing  the  reproach  of  Jesus." 

By  this  method  of  procedure  many  socie- 
ties of  *'  Separatists,"  as  they  were  called, 
were  organized  in  eastern  Connecticut. 
At  New  London,  as  I  have  already  inti- 
mated, Mr.  Davenport  exerted  great  influ- 
ence, drawing  off  a  hundred  members  from 
the  old  church  on  the  hill  and  organizing  a 


ii8 

new  society  in  the  lower  part  of  the  town, 
which  was  to  serve  not  only  as  a  church, 
but  also  as  a  theological  seminary,  where 
true  ministers  were  to  be  educated  and 
sent  forth.  This  institution  was  called  the 
**  Shepherd's  Tent."  From  New  London 
he  passed  on,  visiting  all  the  towns  till  he 
came  to  New  Haven,  where  his  high  family 
connection  and  former  associations  in  Yale 
College  procured  him  a  most  favorable 
reception.  The  minister  gave  him  free  use 
of  his  pulpit  and  all  went  on  well  for  a 
time.  But  Davenport  soon  pronounced  the 
minister  '*  unconverted  "  and  withdrew, 
organizing  a  new  society,  which  still  exists 
as  one  of  the  Congregational  churches  of 
that  city.  It  was  at  this  time,  and  partly 
through  Mr.  Davenport's  influence,  that 
David  Brainerd,  then  a  student  at  Yale, 
made  the  unadvised  remark  about  the  piety 
of  one  of  the  tutors  that  procured  his  ex- 
pulsion from  the  college. 

From  New  Haven  Davenport  journeyed 
/on  in  his  accustomed  manner  to  Stratford, 
where  he  was  arrested  as  a  disturber  of  the 
peace  and  carried  to  Hartford  for  trial  be- 
fore the  General  Assembly.  He  was  con- 
victed as  a  disorderly  person,  but  being 
considered  only  an  enthusiast  and  partially 


119 

insane,  his  sentence  was  simply  transporta- 
tion out  of  Connecticut  back  to  his  home 
in  Long  Island.  This  was  executed  with 
all  due  promptness  and  kindness.  But 
Davenport  could  view  the  matter  in  no 
other  light  than  as  persecution  for  right- 
eousness' sake.  Therefore  he  soon  started 
out  again  on  a  more  extended  tour  through 
New  England,  landing  this  time  near  Bos- 
ton. The  clergy  of  Boston  were  so  much 
alarmed  by  his  coming  that  they  immedi- 
ately held  a  meeting  for  consultation  as  to 
what  attitude  they  should  take  in  reference 
to  him.  Their  deliberations  were  published, 
and  were  to  the  effect  that  though  they 
regarded  Mr.  Davenport  as  a  true  minister 
of  Christ,  by  whom  great  good  had  been 
wrought,  yet  such  were  his  disorders  and 
extravagances  that  they  could  not  admit 
him  to  their  pulpits.  He,  of  course,  took  to 
the  Common  and  preached  in  his  usual  ex- 
cited way  and  organized  a  separate  society, 
which,  however,  never  had  much  vitality. 

Yet  while  he  remained  he  was  so  much 
of  a  power  and  a  plague  that  he  was  in- 
dicted before  the  grand  jury.  One  of  the 
witnesses  gave  this  testimony,  which  shows 
us  the  temper  of  the  man.  He  had  heard 
Mr.  Davenport  make  use  of  these  words, 


120 

apparently  in  prayer:  "Good  Lord,  I  will 
not  mince  the  matter  any  longer  with  thee ; 
thou  knowest  that  I  know  that  most  of  the 
ministers  of  Boston  and  of  the  country  are 
unconverted  and  are  leading  their  people 
blindfold  to  hell.*'  The  result  of  the  trial 
was  that  he  was  declared  to  be  insane  and 
not,  therefore,  accountable  for  his  words 
and  acts. 

Before  long,  however,  Mr.  Davenport, 
much  to  the  relief  of  the  Boston  ministers, 
felt  moved  to  pass  on  to  eastern  Connecti- 
cut, where  he  had  the  most  zealous  follow- 
ing. He  arrived  at  New  London  in  the 
spring  of  1743  and  proceeded  to  inspect  his 
work  at  the  "  Shepherd's  Tent."  He  was 
now  worked  up  to  a  great  frenzy,  and 
affairs,  even  in  this  stronghold  of  his,  did 
not  suit  him.  There  was  too  much  pride 
and  false  doctrine  even  in  the  "  Shepherd's 
Tent,"  and  hence  he  must  purify  it. 
Therefore  he  ordered  all  his  followers  there 
to  bring  together  at  his  rooms  "all  their 
idols"  that  they  might  be  burned.  By 
their  idols  he  meant  all  their  more  showy 
articles  of  wearing  apparel,  such  as  bon- 
nets, cloaks,  breeches,  jewelry,  necklaces, 
etc.  To  these  he  added  all  the  books  by 
those   authors   that   he   did    not   approve, 


121 


among  which  were  those  of  Beveridge, 
Flavel,  Mather,  etc.  It  seems  that  he  him- 
self fell  sick  so  that  he  could  not  in  person 
carry  out  the  programme  and  that  his  fol- 
lowers relented  at  burning  such  good 
clothes.  But  the  books  they  did  burn  in 
the  public  street  one  Sunday  afternoon 
with  much  ado,  standing  around  the  pile 
singing  "  Hallelujah  "  and  *'  Glory  to  God," 
and  declaring,  as  the  smoke  went  up,  that 
so  the  smoke  of  hell  went  up  from  the 
burning  where  the  authors  of  these  books 
were  or  would  be  consigned. 

This  outbreak  of  wild  folly  seems  to  have 
been  the  means  of  opening  the  eyes  of  Mr. 
Davenport  and  many  of  his  followers.  The  ,  . 
ridiculousness  and  impossibility  of  burning  / 
all  "  idols  "  was  seen,  one  man  saying  that 
his  wife  was  his  idol  and  he  was  not  ready 
to  burn  her.  The  fire  of  the  burning  books 
seems  to  have  burned  out  their  inordinate 
zeal,  and  from  that  day  Mr.  Davenport 
himself  became  a  wiser  and  more  sober 
man.  In  about  a  year  he  seemed  to  be  fully 
restored  to  good  sense,  and  then  he  pub- 
lished to  the  world  a  most  humble  confes- 
sion of  his  errors,  begging  the  pardon  of 
Almighty  God  and  of  his  brethren  in  the 
ministry,  whom  he  had  so  deeply  wronged. 


122 

Though  he  personally  thus  recanted,  and 
though  the  society  of  Separatists  at  New 
London  came  to  naught,  yet  in  many  places 
his  errors  were  taken  up  and  carried  on  to 
most  fearful  lengths  by  the  excitable,  ex- 
travagant, and  unsafe  people  who  had  em- 
braced them.  Supposing  themselves  to  be 
under  the  immediate  direction  of  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord,  they  could,  of  course,  override 
not  only  all  rules  of  church  order,  but  even 
of  decency  and  morality,  so  that  in  some 
places  even  licentiousness  was  practised 
under  the  sanction  of  saintliness  and  imme- 
diate inspiration.  The  reports  of  these 
horrid  disorders  would,  of  course,  travel 
much  farther  and  faster  than  those  of  the 
real,  genuine  work  of  the  revival,  and  by 
some  these  things  were  claimed  as  the 
proper  results  of  the  revival.  What  won- 
der, then,  that  many  staid  people  said, 
^"  If  such  things  as  these  come  from  the 
revival,  we  want  nothing  to  do  with  it." 
Hence  the  movement  as  a  whole  came  into 
great  disrepute  with  many,  and  even  the 
grand  leaders  in  it  were  looked  upon  with 
considerable  suspicion.  Whitefield  had 
spoken  in  the  highest  terms  in  his  pub- 
lished journal  of  Davenport,  and  therefore 
he    was    by    many    supposed    to    indorse 


123 

Davenport's  proceedings ;  and  thus  it  was 
with  Edwards  and  Tennent. 

Great  confusion  existed  in  the  public 
mind  in  regard  to  the  whole  matter.  One 
man  was  extolling  and  thanking  God  for 
that  which  another  man  regarded  as  the 
greatest  possible  calamity.  Moreover,  in 
the  work  itself  it  was  quite  difficult  to  sepa- 
rate the  chaff  from  the  wheat,  and  men 
seemed  to  forget  that  chaff  is  necessary  to 
the  production  of  wheat.  Under  the  preach- 
ing of  Whitefield  and  Edwards  and  others 
there  was  at  times  great  outward  confusion, 
men  and  women  falling  down  and  crying 
out  and  creating  a  sort  of  disturbance  that 
seemed  to  be  in  the  same  line  with  Daven- 
port's wild  meetings,  and  in  many  quarters 
every  one  who  proclaimed  himself  a  revival 
man  was  supposed  to  be  in  favor  of  disorder 
and  confusion. 

Although  time  has  corrected  many  of 
these  wrong  impressions  and  inferences, 
yet  there  ever  has  been,  and  is  to  this  day, 
in  this  country  a  class  of  minds  that  revolts 
from  a  revival  when  it  rises  to  any  degree 
of  intensity.  There  are  very  many  who 
seem  to  fear  religious  excitement  above  all 
things  else.  But  bad  as  religious  excite- 
ment and  confusion  may  be,  one  thing  is 


124 

much  worse,  and  that  is  a  cold,  dead  in- 
difference to  eternal  things — an  absence  of 
those  impressions,  revelations  and  inspira- 
tions from  God  that  bring  everlasting  des- 
tiny before  us.  What  matters  it  if  a  few 
are  overcome  as  to  their  bodies,  or  as  to 
their  brains  even,  if  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  can  be  awakened  to  eternal  truth  ? 

Moses  and  Daniel  and  John  and  Paul 
and  others  of  the  writers  of  the  Bible  were 
overcome  by  the  visions  which  they  saw  ; 
but  what  matters  that,  in  comparison  with 
the  value  of  the  Bible  which  through 
them  was  given  to  the  world  ?  And  many 
are  the  times  when  the  uninitiated  pro- 
nounce men  mad  who  are,  in  fact,  more 
sane  than  their  critics.  Festus  cried  out  to 
the  noble  apostle,  "  Paul,  thou  art  beside 
thyself ;  much  learning  doth  make  thee 
mad,'*  but  the  apostle  replied,  **  I  am  not 
mad,  most  noble  Festus ;  but  speak  forth 
the  words  of  truth  and  soberness.'*  On  the 
day  of  Pentecost  some  cried  out,  "These 
men  are  full  of  new  wine,"  but  Peter  re- 
plied, **  These  are  not  drunken,  but  this  is 
that  which  the  prophet  promised." 

The  evils  of  religious  excitement  are  noth- 
ing in  comparison  with  the  evils  of  religious 
insensibility. 


Even  the  excesses  of  such  a  man  as 
Davenport  were  of  short  duration,  and 
there  was  much  of  permanent  value  in  his 
work.  A  considerable  number  of  the  Bap- 
tist churches  of  eastern  Connecticut  are 
the  final  shape  which  these  Separatist  or- 
ganizations of  the  Great  Awakening  finally 
took.  And  I  am  not  sure  but  that  I,  as  an 
individual,  owe  something  to  the  labors  of 
Davenport.  There  were,  in  the  days  of 
my  boyhood  in  that  region  about  New 
London,  the  two  types  of  piety  which  those 
former  centuries  engendered — one,  the  cold 
intellectual,  that  would  chill  a  fervent  soul, 
and  the  other  the  fervid  demonstrative, 
that  needs  intelligent  foundation.  Neither 
is  my  model,  but  I  owe  something  to  the 
latter  as  well  as  to  the  former. 

All  parts  of  our  nature  need  to  be  touched 
by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

But  there  is  one  special  lesson  yi:o  be 
learned  from  the  career  of  Davenport,  and 
that  is  as  to  the  necessity  of  having  a 
sound  and  sanctified  body,  as  well  as  mind 
and  spirit.  Fanaticism  and  insanity  come 
quite  as  much  from  an  imperfect  body  as 
they  do  from  what  we  call  an  unbalanced 
mind.  Only  when  we  attain  the  glorified 
body  shall  we  be  fully  free  from  the  pos- 


/ 


126 

sibility  of  fanaticism.  But  even  now  we 
may  claim  that  help  of  the  Spirit  that  shall 
restore  and  balance  the  several  parts  of  our 
triune  personality,  so  that  our  whole  spirit, 
soul,  and  body  may  be  preserved  blame- 
less in  the  day  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  And  let 
us  see  well  to  it  that  the  enemy  does  not 
gain  ascendancy  over  us  as  to  either  part  of 
our  nature,  and  may  we  ever  have  wisdom 
in  times  of  great  religious  interest  to  dis- 
cern between  true  and  false  enthusiasm  in 
the  Lord's  work. 


VII 

IResults  anD  %c66on6  ot  tbe 
<5ccat  Bwaftcning 

AVING  now  given  a  brief  outline  of 
the  facts  of  the  Great  Awakening  of 
1740,  it  remains  for  me  to  sum  up 
the  results  and  to  state  the  more  important 
lessons  taught  by  this  wonderful  historical 
movement.  The  chief  value  of  a  revival 
of  religion  is  seen  in  its  permanent  results, 
that  live  on  long  after  the  first  excitement 
has  passed  away.  God  has  promised  that 
his  Spirit  **  shall  come  down  like  rain  upon 
the  mown  grass."     Now  the  value  of  the 


M 


127 

rain  is  not  merely  in  the  freshness  which  it 
sheds  abroad  while  it  is  falling,  but  in  the 
springing  growth  and  maturity  of  the  vege- 
tation that  results  therefrom^  Bearing  this 
in  mind,  let  us  see  :  \ 

I.  IVhat  were  the  results  of  the  Great 
Awakening?  i.  The  first  thing  that  we 
naturally  think  of  is  the  number  of  con- 
verts. As  I  stated  in  one  of  the  preceding 
lectures,  fifty  thousand  is  a  very  moderate 
estimate  for  those  in  America  ;  and  there 
surely  must  have  been  an  equal  number  in 
Great  Britain.  Much,  of  course,  depends 
on  the  length  of  the  period  we  include ;  but 
it  is  quite  difficult  to  say  exactly  when  we 
may  consider  that  the  Great  Awakening 
ceased.  It  has  in  fact  never  ceased.  The 
church  has  never  since  that  time  fallen 
into  quite  such  a  spiritual  slumber  as  pre- 
ceded it.  Yet  there  have  been  since  then 
times  when  spiritual  life  waned,  and  when 
the  popular  mind  has  been  chiefly  absorbed 
in  other  than  religious  themes.  The  time 
from  1775  to  181 5  was  such  a  period — a  time 
of  great  political  excitement,  embracing  the 
American  Revolution,  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  the  Napoleonic  wars.  These 
things  kept  the  attention  of  men  largely 
centered  on  worldly  things.     Yet  about  the 


'  P      *  o    i 


128 

year  1800  there  was  a  powerful  revival  in 
the  Middle  States,  and  shortly  after  this  the 
great  missionary  enterprises  of  the  church 
produced  an  enkindling  fervor  in  the  public 
mind.  But  taking  all  things  into  account, 
I  think  we  may  as  well  fix  on  1770,  the 
year  of  Whitefield's  death,  as  the  terminus 
of  the  Great  Awakening.  At  that  time  the 
membership  of  the  Wesleyan  Methodist 
societies  in  Great  Britain  was  thirty  thou- 
sand, and  to  these  we  may,  without  doubt, 
add  twenty  thousand  to  be  found  among 
the  Calvinistic  Methodists,  the  Independ- 
ents, and  the  Church  of  England.  So  that 
I  think  we  may  safely  say  that  a  hundred 
thousand  souls  were  converted  in  Great 
^^4^  Britain  and  America  during  the  period  of 
^  '  .» ''  the  Great  Awakening.  And  these  conver- 
"  sions,  you  must  remember,  were   for  the 

most  part  somewhat  of  the  Pauline  stamp — 
vivid,  thorough,  deep — not  mere  easy  and 
natural  acknowledgments  of  the  claims  of 
Christ  such  as  we  have  now-a-days,  but 
agonizing  experiences  that  made  wonderful 
impressions  upon  their  subjects.  These 
were  conversions  that  were  seen  and  felt 
and  known,  in  many  cases  reclaiming  men 
from  a  life  of  hardened  vice  or  strong  infi- 
delity and  opposition  to  God.     A  hundred 


.0 


129 

thousand  so  converted,  at  a  time  when  the 
world  had  almost  forgotten  what  conversion 
was,  or  doubted  the  power  of  religion  to 
create  any  such  change  in  the  human  heart 
— I  say,  a  hundred  thousand  such  conver- 
sions at  such  a  time  was  simply  tremen- 
dous, a  sublime  spectacle  before  the  world. 
2.  So  I  mention  as  a  second  result  the 
change  of  opinion  that  came  over  the  world 
with  regard  to  Christianity  as  a  power. 
Spiritual  religion  had  been  supposed  by 
skeptics  to  be  an  effete  superstition.  But 
lo  !  it  arises  in  might,  sways  the  masses, 
claims  its  thousands,  counts  its  martyrs, 
and  walks  forth  as  the  great  power  of  the 
times.  Men  began  to  see  a  meaning  in 
the  words  of  the  old  Book,  when  it  said, 
*'  Awake  !  awake  !  put  on  thy  strength,  O 
Zion."  They  might  still  be  unbelievers  as 
to  the  claims  of  the  source  of  the  power, 
but  they  could  no  longer  ignore  the  fact  of 
the  power.  And  although  the  blind  mad- 
ness of  infidelity  in  France,  where  the 
power  of  the  revival  was  not  seen,  marched 
on  to  its  frantic  and  fanatical  work  of  ex- 
terminating the  name  of  Christianity  from 
that  portion  of  the  earth,  yet  the  truly 
great  minds  of  the  time  saw  plainly  enough 
that  Christianity  was  a  power,  and  that  it 


130 

could  neither  be  crushed  nor  ignored.  The 
deep-thinking  Napoleon  restored  Christi- 
anity, nominally,  as  the  religion  of  the  em- 
pire, because  he  saw  that  it  was  a  power 
in  the  earth.  And  all  common-sense  men 
feel  and  believe  that  to  be  a  fact  to  this 
day.  Some  special  pleaders  and  narrowly 
wise  men  in  some  particular  branch  of 
thought  may  conceive  that  there  is  really 
no  power  in  Christianity  aside  from  men's 
own  fancies.  But  whoever  reads  history, 
or  at  least  whoever  keeps  in  sympathy 
with  these  old  days  we  have  been  consid- 
ering, knows  and  feels  in  his  inmost  soul 
that  there  is  strength  in  Zion. 

3.  Another  result  of  the  Great  Awaken- 
ing was  the  change  of  sentiment  which  was 
wrought  within  the  church  herself  as  to  the 
real  nature  of  true  religion.  For,  as  I  have 
shown  you,  many  in  her  ranks  and  in  her 
ministry,  educated  in  her  forms  and  doc- 
trines, but  never  having  felt  the  power, 
had  begun  to  consider  Christianity  merely 
a  form  and  a  faith.  To  learn  the  catechism 
and  to  submit  to  the  ordinances  many 
thought  was  to  be  a  Christian.  To  have 
the  form  merely,  without  the  power,  was 
the  height  of  many  an  honest  ambition. 
Yea,  many  did   not  know  that  there  was 


131 

any  power.  Like  certain  disciples  of  old, 
they  had  not  so  much  as  heard  whether 
there  was  any  Holy  Ghost.  But  when  he 
came  like  a  rushing  mighty  wind,  bending 
the  tall  cedar  of  the  mountain  as  well  as 
the  tender  grass  of  the  valley,  old  pro- 
fessors opened  their  eyes  and  said  :  "  Alas, 
alas,  we  have  never  known  the  power  of 
God  before  !  This  is  that  which  is  written 
in  the  Book,  but  we  never  understood  it 
before.  It  is  not  enough  to  profess  to  know 
Christ.  We  must  be  in  living  communi- 
cation with  him."  The  fact  and  necessity 
of  the  new  birth  dawned  like  a  new  truth 
on  many  a  heart  that  had  ecclesiastically 
and  formally  supposed  itself  to  be  Chris- 
tian. It  was  one  of  the  converts  of  the 
Great  Awakening  who  wrote  that  vivid 
and  graphic  hymn  : 

Awaked  by  Sinai's  awful  sound, 
My  soul  in  bonds  of  guilt  1  found, 

And  knew  not  where  to  go  ; 
One  solemn  truth  increased  my  pain, 
"  The  sinner  must  be  born  again," 

Or  sink  to  endless  woe. 

Many  of  the  clergy  confessed  that  now, 
for  the  first  time,  had  they  themselves 
known  the  real  essence  of  religion.  The 
tone  of  preaching  changed  and  the  aim  and 


132 

endeavor  of  the  ministry  changed.  And 
from  that  day  to  this  a  change  of  heart,  a 
real  experience,  has  been  insisted  on  in 
most  of  the  Protestant  denominations. 

4.  This  brings  me  to  speak,  in  the  fourth 
place,  of  the  change  that  was  wrought  in 
church  organisation,  or  church  practice, 
rather.  The  Congregational  and  Presby- 
terian denominations  were  practically  reor- 
ganized on  the  Baptist  principle  of  con- 
verted church-membership.  Stoddardism, 
or  the  Half-way  Covenant,  received  for  a 
time  at  least  its  deathblow.  The  theory 
that  there  was  no  objection  to  an  uncon- 
verted ministry  was  overthrown.  The 
Methodist  denomination,  the  vital  power  in 
which  has  been  experimental  godliness, 
sprang  into  existence  and  has  taken  the 
forefront  of  all  denominations  in  point  of 
numbers.  The  Baptists  also  received  a 
mighty  impulse  and  increase,  and  from  that 
day  to  this  have  been  recognized  as  a 
power  in  the  religious  world. 

In  fact,  the  Great  Awakening  secured  a 
grand  triumph  of  Baptist  principles,  or,  at 
least,  Baptist  practices.  The  corner-stone 
of  the  Baptist  faith  is  a  professedly  con- 
verted church-membership.  Before  the 
Great    Awakening    none    except    Baptists 


133 

acknowledged  this  principle.  Since  the 
Great  Awakening  none  have  dared  to 
ignore  it.  Methodists,  Presbyterians,  Con- 
gregationalists  are  in  large  degree  Baptist 
in  their  practice.  And  although  the  old 
creeds  stand  with  their  erroneous  ideas, 
formed  and  acted  upon  before  the  Great 
Awakening,  the  practice  of  the  churches 
since  that  time  has  been  chiefly  in  favor  of 
experimental  religion.  No  one  can  intelli- 
gently perceive  the  value  of  Baptist  doc- 
trine without  understanding  this  historical 
period.  The  dark  days  that  preceded  the 
Great  Awakening  will  come  again  unless 
somebody  stands  firmly  and  clearly  and 
decidedly  by  the  doctrine  of  a  converted 
church-membership. 

5.  But  I  pass  on  to  note  another  result 
of  the  Great  Awakening,  namely,  the  great 
impulse  given  to  evangelical  education  and 
intelligence.  Education  without  regenera- 
tion has,  in  past  ages,  produced  a  vast 
amount  of  formalism  and  death  in  religion. 
Consequently,  some  short-sighted  zealots 
have  regarded  it  as  an  enemy  rather  than 
as  a  friend  of  true  piety.  Hence,  some 
enthusiasts  have  gloried  in  their  ignorance 
of  book  learning  and  vaunted  themselves 
on  the  inspiration  of  the  Spirit  alone.     But 


134 

the  Great  Awakening  was  conducted  chiefly 
by  men  of  education,  and  it  has  left  its 
decided  record  and  invaluable  monuments 
in  the  way  of  institutions  of  learning  and 
religious  literature.  I  have  shown  how 
the  Coljege  of  New  Jersey  and  the  Theo- 
logical Seminary  at  Princeton  grew  out  of 
Tennent's  Log  College  at  Neshaminy,  and 
how  those  notable  institutions  were  con- 
ducted for  a  time  almost  wholly  in  the 
interest  of  the  great  revival,  thus  starting 
the  educational  system  of  the  Presbyterian 
church.  Harvard  and  Yale  received  a 
great  impulse  from  the  revival,  though  they 
at  first  set  themselves  against  it.  Dart- 
mouth College,  in  New  Hampshire,  was  a 
direct  outgrowth  of  the  Great  Awakening, 
funds  for  its  establishment  being  solicited 
in  England  by  Occom,  the  converted  Mo- 
hegan  Indian,  who  wrote  the  hymn  I  have 
already  quoted,  *' Awaked  by  Sinai's  awful 
sound."  Lord  Dartmouth,  a  zealous  Metho- 
dist, gave  so  largely  to  its  funds  that  the 
institution  was  named  after  him.  Brown 
University,  at  Providence,  the  parent  of  all 
the  Baptist  colleges,  was  founded  during 
the  Great  Awakening.  Lady  Huntingdon 
also  planted  an  institution  in  her  own  life- 
time for  the  education  of  her  preachers,  and 


135 

the  regular  Methodists  followed  in  due  time 
with  theirs.  So,  very  many  of  the  colleges 
and  seminaries  of  the  present  day  largely 
owe  their  existence,  or  their  influence  as 
healthful  fountains  of  truth,  directly  to  the 
Great  Awakening. 

Some  people  have  claimed  the  Sunday- 
school  as  an  outgrowth  of  this  same  period  ; 
so  doubtless  it  was  in  some  sense,  though  it 
more  properly  belongs  to  a  season  a  little 
later.  Yet  it  is  a  fact  worthy  of  record  that 
the  first  Sunday-school  in  Great  Britain  V 
was  planted  at  Gloucester  where  White- 
field  was  born,  and  the  first  Sunday-school 
in  America  was  at  Newburyport,  Mass., 
where  Whitefield  died  and  was  buried. 

It  is,  I  believe,  generally  conceded  that 
the  first  religious  newspaper  ever  published 
was  the  '*  Christian  History,"  printed  in 
Boston  for  the  express  purpose  of  report- 
ing the  progress  of  the  revival,  and  so  we 
may  consider  this  the  parent  of  the  innu- 
merable progeny  of  religious  periodicals 
that  now  throng  our  pathway. 

6.  But  one  of  the  grandest,  most  appro- 
priate, and  sweetest  results,  or  monuments 
of  the  Great  Awakening,  was  its  invaluable 
contribution  to  Christian  song.  God  has 
promised  that  whenever  his  Spirit  is  poured 


136 

out  there  will  be  grand  outbursts  of  song. 
As  the  prophet  says  :  *'  Even  the  mountains 
and  the  hills  shall  break  forth  into  singing, 
and  all  thQ- trees  of  the  field  shall  clap  their 
hands."  In  all  ages  the  people  of  God 
have  sung  when  conscious  of  great  deliver- 
ances or  blessings  :  Miriam  on  the  bank  of 
the  Red  Sea  ;  David  when  the  people  were 
firmly  established  in  the  land  ;  the  angels 
when  the  Saviour  was  born,  with  whom 
Zacharias  and  Mary  chimed  in  ;  the  early 
Christians  in  their  feasts  of  love  ;  Gregory 
with  his  stately  chants  upon  the  establish- 
ment of  the  church  ;  Adolphus  and  Luther 
in  the  battles  and  successes  of  the  Refor- 
mation. But  I  doubt  if  such  a  wealth 
and  variety  of  Christian  song  was  ever 
poured  forth  in  so  short  a  time  as  during 
the  years  of  the  Great  Awakening.  What 
a  blessed  list  of  singers  !  The  Wesleys — 
Charles,  a  chief  of  the  whole  company, 
aided  by  his  father  and  his  brothers  ;  Addi- 
son, of  literary  fame  ;  the  graceful  Mont- 
gomery, a  poet  indeed  ;  Doctor  Watts, 
known  the  world  over ;  and  Doddridge  and 
Toplady  and  Olivers,  and  Anne  Steele  and 
Lady  Huntingdon,  and  Robinson  and  Faw- 
cett,  and  Occom,  Hervey,  and  Hart — all  of 
whom  have  sent  their  productions  down 


137 

to  our  day,  besides  so  very  many,  true 
and  glowing  in  their  time,  that  have  been 
somewhat  crowded  aside  by  the  rush  Oi 
other  aspirants. 

A  hundred  years  make  many  changes, 
push  aside  very  much  as  obsolete  in  thought 
or  in  expression.  Many  sweet  singers  have 
since  arisen,  and  the  records  of  medieval 
and  ancient  song  have  recently  been  ex- 
plored and  put  in  new  dress  before  the 
world.  Yet  on  looking  hastily  over  the 
index  of  our  ordinary  church  hymn  book,  I 
count  three  hundred  and  sixty-eight  hymns 
as  the  product  of  the  Great  Awakening,  and 
doubtless  a  better  knowledge  of  authors 
would  reveal  more  than  that  number.  And 
how  fervent  and  solid  and  sweet  many  of 
them  are  !  Listen  to  some  of  the  first  lines 
and  see  if  you  ever  heard  them  before  : 

1.  Rock  of  Ages  deft  for  me,  by  Toplady.  2. 
Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul,  by  C.  Wesley.  3.  Come, 
thou  fount  of  every  blessing,  by  Robinson.  4.  Am 
1  a  solder  of  the  cross,  by  Watts.  5.  Blest  be  the 
tie  that  binds,  by  Fawcett.  6.  Awaked  by  Sinai's 
awful  sound,  by  Occom.  7-  Come,  ye  sinners,  poor 
and  wretched,  by  Hart.  8.  When  thou,  my  right- 
eous Judge,  shalt  come,  by  Lady  Huntingdon,  g. 
Jesus,  I  love  thy  charming  name,  by  Doddridge. 
10.  Oh,  where  shall  rest  be  found,  by  Montgomery. 
u.  Dear  Refuge  of  my  weary  soul,  by  Anne  Steele. 


J_ 


138 

And  so  if  I  were  to  give  more  than  one 
from  each  author,  I  could  report  scores  of 
our  most  familiar  hymns  as  the  results  of 
the  outburst  of  Christian  song  more  than  a 
hundred  years  ago.  This  is  a  kind  of  testi- 
mony that  cannot  be  gainsaid.  That  was 
no  mean  or  unworthy  period  of  the  church 
which  begat  all  these  blessed  hymns. 

7.  And  last,  1  must  once  more  name  that 
which  I  have  several  times  mentioned  in 
the  course  of  the  lectures  :  The  influence 
of  the  revival  on  social  and  political  history. 
It  is  difficult,  I  know,  to  say  just  how  much 
of  the  prosperity  of  Great  Britain  and 
America  is  due  to  these  religious  influences. 
But  who  can  compare  fairly  the  history  of 
France  and  England,  and  not  be  impressed 
with  the  fact  that  some  mighty  power  has 
preserved  the  latter  from  those  social  and 
political  volcanoes  with  which  the  former 
is  repeatedly  upheaved.  We  are  continu- 
ally saying,  "  poor  France,"  "  poor  Spain," 
**  poor  Italy."  Why  poor  }  Have  they  not 
a  sunnier  climate,  more  venerable  associ- 
ations and  treasures  }  Why,  then,  poor  } 
Poor,  because  the  revival  waves  of  true 
spiritual  religion  have  not  passed  over 
them.  Because  they  know  only  the  relig- 
ion of  form  that  does  not,  and  never  can, 


139 

satisfy  the  heart.  "  Godliness  is  profitable 
unto  all  things,  having  promise  of  the  life 
that  now  is,  and  of  that  which  is  to  come." 

Thus,  to  review,  we  see  that  almost  all 
things  that  we  prize  as  dearest  and  best  in 
our  lives,  are  in  some  sense  the  results  of 
the  Great  Awakening.  Our  churches,  our 
doctrines,  our  customs,  our  literature,  our 
colleges,  our  songs,  yea,  the  whole  current 
of  our  political  history,  all  have  been  differ- 
ent because  of  the  Great  Awakening,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  myriad  souls  gathered  safe 
home  to  heaven  through  its  influence. 

II.  The  Lessons  of  the  Great  Awakening. 
And  now  as  to  the  lessons.  They  are  many. 
Only  a  few  of  them  can  I  mention  here. 

I.  The  first  that  I  mention  is  that ///s- 
tory  is  a  grand  witness  to  the  truth  of  the 
Bible,  and  the  reality  of  religion.  Sometimes 
people  get  bewildered  among  the  mists  of 
the  speculatively  inclined,  as  for  example, 
the  evolutionists.  They  follow  some 
plausible  theory  till  it  seems  to  sap  the 
foundations  of  the  Bible,  and  they  become 
disturbed  in  their  faith.  But  turn  a 
moment  and  look  at  these  grand  facts  of 
history  ;  see  these  trophies  of  grace.  Take 
a  glance  at  Northampton  or  Moorfield, 
where  the  power  of  the  Lord  rolled  down 


140 

as  a  mighty  torrent,  sweeping  all  before  it, 
and  you  can  doubt  no  longer.  These 
things  were  not  done  in  a  corner,  they  are 
grand,  open-air,  noonday,  modern-time 
facts,  worth  ten  thousand  tons  of  finely 
spun  theory.  The  old  Bible  is  true  and  all 
men  will  find  it  so. 

2.  Another  lesson  which  we  should  keep 
in  mind  is  that  Christianity,  when  rightly 
believed  in  and  heartily  worked^  is  a  power. 
The  power  resides  not  in  the  truth  alone, 
nor  in  the  Spirit  alone,  but  in  the  truth  and 
the  Spirit  working  together.  The  truth  alone 
educates,  and  the  Spirit  alone  stimulates  ; 
but  the  truth  and  the  Spirit  working  together 
conquer  the  head  and  the  heart,  and  bring  all 
into  captivity  to  the  mind  of  Christ.  And  the 
man  who  believes  the  truth  and  is  accom- 
panied by  the  Spirit,  is  the  true  preacher 
with  power.  Let  us  never  forget  the  power 
of  Christianity.  It  seemed  like  madness 
for  Whitefield  to  attack  Moorfield  on  the 
Whitsun  holiday  ;  but  what  a  grand  demon- 
stration of  power  it  was  !  And  any  one 
who  will  go  forth  in  the  power  of  the  Lord, 
may  in  like  manner  win  victories.  We 
should  be  less  occupied  with  theories  and 
more  immersed  in  practice.  Instead  of 
having  so  many  apologies  for  Christianity, 


MI 

we  should  say  with  Paul,  I  am  not 
ashamed  of  the  gospel  of  Christ :  for  it  is 
the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  every 
one  that  believeth."  We  should  use  it 
too  with  boldness.  It  will  cut  sometimes 
where  we  least  expect  it. 
/  3.  Another  lesson  that  we  learn  is  that 
^  the  hope  of  the  church  is  in  revivals  of  religion. 
But,  says  one,  we  ought  to  be  steadily  alive 
in  the  cause  of  God,  and  not  to  have  these 
periodic  excitements.  So  too,  all  men  ought 
to  be  Christians  ;  so  too,  the  earth  ought 
to  be  a  heaven.  But  unhappily,  none  of 
these  things  are  as  yet.  All  things  here  at 
present  are  out  of  joint.  A  fierce  battle 
rages.  The  enemy  gains  an  advantage, 
comes  in  like  a  flood,  but  then  the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  lifts  up  a  standard  against  him, 
drives  him  back  and  gains  the  ground. 
Thus  it  ever  has  been,  and  thus  no  doubt 
it  will  be  till  the  Lord  shall  come  to  reign. 
So,  then,  I  say,  revivals  of  religion  are  the 
hope  of  our  times.  And  those  churches  that 
believe  in  them  and  work  for  them  are  the 
churches  that  will  live  and  grow,  while  those 
that  trust  to  their  creed,  or  their  dignity,  or 
their  culture,  or  their  standing,  or  their  tal- 
ent, will  lose  their  spiritual  power  and  be- 
come mere  human  and  earthly  institutions. 


142 

/'  4-  But  again,  we  should  learn  that  true  re- 
fvivals  come  down  from  above  in  answer  to 
prayer.  They  are  not  man-made  excitements. 
No  one  can  impartially  read  the  history  of  the 
Great  Awakening  without  seeing  that  the 
moving  power  was  not  in  man,  but  in  God. 
There  was  no  concert  between  Wesley  and 
Edwards  and  Tennent  and  Whitefield  to 
stir  up  the  world.  But  God  sent  them 
every  one,  and  through  them  and  others 
like  them  moved  the  multitudes. 

5.  Another  thing  that  we  learn  is  that 
powerful  revivals  will  awaken  a  great  amount 
of  oppositiony  and  very  likely  some  will  run 
into  unprofitable  excitement  and  extremes^ 
but  that  the  chaff  will  soon  blow  awav 
leaving  the  precious  grain.  The  good  re- 
sults of  the  Great  Awakening  remained 
long  after  the  follies  of  the  time  had  passed. 
Moreover,  we  of  this  day  with  our  pre- 
ponderance of  head-culture,  need  not  fear 
a  too  fervid  state  of  the  heart.  The  danger 
of  our  time  is  not  from  excitement,  but 
from  cold  indifferentism.  No  church  can 
indeed  live  on  excitement,  but  any  church 
with  a  stable  and  able  ministry  need  not 
fear  too  much  excitement.  The  mill  never 
gets  too  hot  when  there  is  grain  in  the 
hopper. 


143 

6.  And  lastly,  let  us  learn  from  a  review 
of  this'  period  how  easily  and  unconsciously 
men  intending  to  do  right  may  be  allured  into 
an  unsafe  slumber.  Scores  of  ministers 
and  church  officials  and  church-members 
were,  before  this  mighty  arousement,  sleep- 
ing in  a  state  of  spiritual  deadness  that  was 
fatal  to  any  true  Christian  life.  We  would 
not  judge  them,  but  they  themselves  con- 
fessed that  they  were  without  hope  and 
without  God  in  the  world,  living  a  mere 
formal  life,  and  having  no  real  communion 
with  God.  Yet  they  supposed  themselves 
to  be  model  Christians,  and  were  greatly 
disturbed  when  zealous  men,  moved  by  the 
Spirit,  began  to  hold  up  the  requirements 
of  God  instead  of  the  old  customs  and 
standards  of  fossilized  churches. 

Nor  should  we  of  to-day  forget  that  dur- 
ing the  last  thirty-five  or  forty  years  re- 
vivals have  greatly  declined  in  power,  that 
is,  in  the  depth  of  the  experience  which 
they  engender.  Moreover,  the  best  relig- 
ious life  of  modern  days  does  not  at  all 
compare  with  that  of  the  apostolic  day. 
So  without  doubt  the  churches  of  our  day 
will  need  some  great  awakening  in  order 
to  prepare  those  who  will  be  ready  for  the 
coming  of  the  Lord. 


144 

But  let  us  ever  remember  that  while  the 
Lord's  power  is  sufficient  for  any  emer- 
gency, he  has  a  right  to  expect  from  his 
people,  enlightened  as  they  may  be  by  the 
word  and  the  lessons  of  history,  an  intelli- 
gent co-operation  in  the  workings  of  his 
Holy  Spirit. 


Princeton 


Theological  Seminary  }-j^\f^\^^ 


1    1012  01245  7364 


DATE  DUE 


GAYLORD  #3523PI       Printed  in  USA 


